


Downslope

by ilarual (Ilarual)



Series: Holidays Series [1]
Category: Soul Eater
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2014-01-14
Packaged: 2018-01-05 20:09:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1098107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilarual/pseuds/ilarual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A reluctant Soul opens his family's ski cabin to the members of Spartoi for a holiday getaway. Fun, games, and winter shenanigans ensue. Multiple pairings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ❅ ☆ Prologue ☆ ❅

**Author's Note:**

> This little bit of a fic isn't much more than fluff and romance and just a (very) small side dish of drama, but I think it's fun. Subsequent chapters will be published daily starting on December 27th until January 1st. I am not certain if I will be able to upload them here, because I will be out of town and only have internet access from my mobile, but they will definitely be available on ff.net under the same pen name- barring some horrible phone disaster that prevents me from access entirely, of course.
> 
> This is set a few years post-manga, and you're free to envision any ages you choose, but I personally have the characters mentally set in an age range from late teens to early twenties.
> 
> The prologue is short, subsequent chapters will be longer; have a lovely holiday, whatever holiday you may celebrate at this time of year, if any!

Soul decided, in retrospect, that it was entirely Maka’s fault.

Well, maybe not _entirely_. Some of the blame had to go to Patti, who had first conceived the idea that they all needed a vacation, and to Liz, who had agreed whole-heartedly and joined in the effort to badger Kid about it until he decided to give the entirety of Spartoi a week off after Christmas. So yeah, maybe it was a little bit Kid’s fault, too. Tsubaki wasn’t exactly innocent in this whole thing, either. She was the one who had bemoaned the fact that they never got to spend any quality time together any more and inspired the whole “group vacation” idea. Come to think of it, he wasn’t too happy with Kilik and Harvar, either, because they were the ones who had suggested skiing.  And since everybody else had been so completely taken with that particular idea, but completely unable to agree on a destination for such that was both affordable and could accommodate all fourteen of them, he supposed they ought to shoulder some of the blame as well.

If anybody asked, however- not that they would, but it was the principle of the thing- he was going to maintain that this was completely, totally, 100% Maka’s fault... if only to cover up the fact that really, he had no one to blame for this but himself.

Well, technically he supposed he could blame Maka at least a little bit. If she weren’t so damn endearing, he wouldn’t be such a complete sucker for those stupid wistful eyes of hers. But it wasn’t her fault that he had about as much control over his hormones (to say nothing of his runaway sentimentality, which was the real cause of the trouble in this case) as the average cocker spaniel. So sue him, he’d been in love with her since he was like fifteen; he could be forgiven for doing incredibly stupid things for her once in awhile. Or all the time.

If it had just been a question of Kid refusing to use Shibusen funds to subsidize the renting of a ski cabin (something about “frivolous use of taxpayers’ capital”), he would never have ended up in this situation. No skin off his back if they couldn’t figure out how to make a week of skiing happen. Personally, he’d have preferred to go to a beach somewhere anyway. Snow sports weren’t his thing.  But then, _of course_ , Maka had to go and make that forlorn little comment about how she’d never really gotten to see snow except on missions thanks to growing up in Death Valley, and there wasn’t a whole lot of time to really experience the novelty when you were fighting for your life.

Well, when she put it like that, what the hell was he supposed to do?

So of course, like the _complete idiot_ he was, he’d volunteered the piece of information that, actually, his family had a ski cabin in Aspen that was perfectly big enough to comfortably house them all.  Genius, Soul Eater, really genius. And that was how he had ended up being forced to make this _really fucking delightful_ phone call.

“Hey, Wes? Yeah, it’s me. Yes, your brother. What, I can’t call for no reason?” A sigh. “Okay, fine. I just wanted to ask if Mum and Dad were planning on using the lodge in Aspen the week after Christmas?”


	2. Dec. 27th

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we go with Chapter 1, posted a few hours early... but it's already the 27th in Europe, after all, so it counts.

It was a drive of just over eleven hours from Death City to Aspen, and they had taken it in one straight shot. Maka wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about the fact that Tsubaki had driven. On the one hand, it was definitely better than letting Black*Star behind the wheel of his hulking, neon blue SUV, because he had road rage of the absolute worst kind. On the other hand, the fact that Black*Star wasn’t focused on driving meant that he was free to focus on other things. Things like consuming an obscene amount of junk food and talking even louder and faster than normal.

She wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or bad thing that his favored subject for monologuing had switched from his godly self to the magnificence that was his longstanding relationship with Tsubaki. The three-year anniversary of their first kiss, he informed them (fifteen times), was coming up in four days.

Maka didn’t even have to look at her partner to know he was getting a headache just from listening to him.

"It’s a left turn right up here and then about three miles off the highway. No way you can miss it," the aforementioned partner informed Tsubaki, leaning up into the front seat to point out the turnoff.

"Thanks, Soul," she replied, with the most fleeting glance out of the corner of her eye to flash him a sweet smile, taking the turn smoothly.

As Soul settled back into his seat, Maka turned to look at him thoughtfully. “You’re absolutely sure we’re all going to be able to fit?” she asked him. It wasn’t the first time she’d asked since he’d suggested using his family’s cabin, and she was pretty sure he was getting annoyed with the question, but she couldn’t help it. With the whole of Spartoi in on this getaway, she couldn’t picture all of them being able to fit in a single cabin.

The death scythe rolled his eyes. “For the eighth time, _yes_ , I’m sure. A couple of people are gonna have to bunk together, but the lovebirds up there-” He jerked a thumb in the direction of Black*Star and Tsubaki, the former of whom was making besotted doe-eyes at his weapon to a frankly sickening degree. “-were gonna be sharing a bed anyway, and I don’t think the Thompsons or Fire and Thunder will mind sharing. Trust me, when my parents bought this place, they were planning on being able to entertain pretty much everybody important they know. They’re like that.”

Maka frowned, but supposed that he would know better than she would. “Alright, if you say so.”

"I do say so. Geez, I spent at least two weeks here every winter until I was twelve, I think I know how many people it can fit."

Conceding his point, Maka sat back in her seat and returned to gazing out the window with no small amount of excitement. The winding road outside the car was lined with a dense forest of pine and spruce trees, with the mountain they were currently driving up rising dramatically beyond them against a white-grey sky. True to form, wintertime in the Rocky Mountains had afforded them a thick blanket of fluffy white snow that coated every branch of the trees and piled up in drifts well over three feet deep in places on the ground. The latest snowstorm had been long enough ago that the roads had been cleared, but the private drive leading up to the Evans family cabin had not, so Tsubaki was driving very carefully to avoid sliding off the road entirely.

They drove the last couple miles in silence. Or at least, relative silence. Black*Star still hadn’t shut up, but after so many hours in a confined space with him, his jabbering had become basically white noise to the other three.

_The beautiful thing about Black*Star_ , Maka reflected, _is that you don’t actually have to listen to him_. That particular piece of wisdom was probably the only reason Black*Star had survived their shared childhood. He would sometimes demand attention, but more often than not you could just tune him out and occasionally nod, especially if Tsubaki was around because she actually listened to him.

Finally, Tsubaki rounded the final turn and the Evans’ private ski cabin emerged from behind a thick stand of white pines.

Maka’s eyes widened.

Black*Star broke off in the middle of his sentence to blurt out, “Holy shit! Soul, I thought you said your parents had a ski _cabin_ , not a ski _mansion!_ ”

Although she didn’t say as much, Maka privately agreed with the ninja’s assessment. At the very least, “lodge” would probably be a better term than “cabin.” As Soul directed Tsubaki around the narrow drive from the front of the house to the back where the parking spaces were, she could keep from gaping a little bit. It was primarily a large A-frame building two stories tall, simple in design except for the fact that the front wall was entirely glass, allowing an unobstructed view out of the house and straight down the mountainside. However, that wasn’t the extent of it. There was also a second wing of the lodge extending from the east wall which Maka assumed, based on what she could see through the glass of the A-frame, was where the bedrooms were housed. As they drove around the back and parked, Maka saw that, because the house was built on a slope, from the back it only appeared one storey tall, with the bottom floor underground.

The four of them unfolded themselves from the SUV, sinking into the thick snow as their joints creaked and popped from many hours spent cramped up in the confined space. They retrieved their bags from the back of the vehicle and waded through the snow to the door, which Soul unlocked before stepping aside to let them enter ahead of him. Black*Star scampered in first, and they could hear indistinguishable but clearly excited shouting from inside.

Before Tsubaki could pass Soul, he caught her by the elbow. “Could you try to control him, please?” he begged. “I personally don’t give a shit if he breaks everything in the house, but I’d rather not have to deal with my parents if he does.”

"Don’t worry, Soul-kun," Tsubaki said with a reassuring smile. "I have a lot of practice with making Black*Star behave himself."

And, Maka guessed as she entered the house close behind the shadow weapon, the fact that Tsubaki could now hold sex over Black*Star’s head probably didn’t hurt his self-control either.

The inside of the Evans’ lodge was appropriate for a mountainside getaway, all white maple-wood and moose- and pine-themed decorations of the kind one might expect of a backwoods cabin. It wasn’t extravagant except in terms of sheer size, but it had clearly been designed and decorated with comfort in mind. Maka discovered upon a little looking around that the open floor plan of the A-frame contained a tidy kitchen and sizable dining room on the first floor. In the middle of the space was an open spiral staircase leading up to the second floor.

Black*Star came sliding down the railing of the staircase, landing heavily at the bottom. He wore an enormous grin on his face and he bounded eagerly up to Soul. “ _Dude_ , you didn’t tell me you were _loaded!_ ”

Soul stared impassively at his friend. “Black*Star, I’m not rich. My family is. Not me.”

"Whatever, man. This place is fuckin’ sweet."

"Yeah well don’t get too comfortable, man. I don’t plan on making a habit out of asking my family to use their stuff," the white-haired boy said, expression still blank.

Maka wandered away, ignoring the disappointed whining noises Black*Star was making. She ascended the spiral staircase, poking her head up through the floor of the second storey.

The upper floor of the A-frame was devoted to a single large lounge room. On the east wall beside the door that led to the second wing of the lodge was a large wood-burning fireplace which, upon closer inspection, proved to be double sided. Peering through the grate, Maka determined that on the other side of the wall was the master bedroom. The fireplace was surrounded by a well-matched assortment of cushy sofas and large stuffed chairs. The room also featured a large flat screen television and a billiards table. The view out the window-wall was magnificent.

Maka whistled low under her breath. Black*Star had it right. This wasn’t the kind of place a middle-class family could afford, especially not just as a seasonal getaway. Soul had never spoken much about his family even to her, but she had been able to deduce from what little he had said (not to mention a few quirks of his own he probably wasn’t aware of) that his parents were well-off. She had never imagined anything like _this_ , however.

At that moment, Tsubaki emerged up the staircase. Soul was right behind her, helping her carry the other half of her and Black*Star’s luggage. “I figure you guys can have the master bedroom,” Soul was saying, “since you’ve been together the longest and, I dunno, isn’t there some kind of seniority about that?”

Tsubaki laughed lightly. “I don’t think so. And besides, haven’t Kim and Ox technically been together longer?”

Soul snorted. “Are we talking before or after the six times they’ve broken up?”

"Seven, actually."

"Whatever. You and ‘Star take the master bedroom anyway. It’s ri-"

Abruptly, he was pushed heavily aside by Black*Star, who streaked past him to reach Tsubaki. “Here, let me carry those!” Black*Star shouted in a tense voice, yanking the suitcases from his girlfriend’s hands.

Tsubaki gave him a very strange look. “It’s alright, Black*Star, I can carry my own bag.”

He shook his head firmly, both of her bags in one hand and his other arm sneaking around Tsubaki’s waist. “No, I’ll do it,” he said, calming. Turning to look at Soul, who was rubbing his shoulder where Black*Star had shoved him and glaring, he said, “Soul, my man, what was it you were saying about the bedroom?”

Soul rolled his eyes, but guided them into the other part of the house. Shortly after they disappeared, Maka heard the creak of a door, and then Soul said, “The bed should already be made, ‘cause Wes called the guy to come out and open up the house last week, but if you need anything, just let me know.”

A slight grin crept across Maka’s face. She was always terribly amused when her weapon slipped into hospitality mode. It didn’t happen very frequently, because a good ninety-seven percent of the time Soul couldn’t give less of a crap about formality and his idea of being a good host was usually to tell anyone who crossed their threshold that there was soda in the fridge if they wanted it. Every so often, however, some particular circumstance would set him off and as if a switch had been flipped he would bustle around fussing like a housewife. It was absolutely adorable, not that she ever planned on telling him that.

There were a lot of things Soul did that she felt fell into the “adorable” category, truth be told. He tried so hard to pretend that he was a real hard-boiled tough guy, and for a short time at the beginning of their partnership, Maka had bought the act. However, it hadn’t taken her too long to start to see through the cool facade and discover the gentle-hearted, always thoughtful, occasionally awkward weirdo he really was. Soul was definitely cool, but he was so many other things underneath the surface, and discovering him slowly over the years had been the best part of their school years by far. He was a strange blend of sweet and sour, idiot and genius, and the combination made her heart do funny things.

Not that she planned on doing anything about it, because even if Soul was receptive to the idea- which she sometimes suspected he was- she knew all too well that introducing a romantic aspect to weapon/meister relationships couldn’t end well. All apologies to Tsubaki and Black*Star, of course. But Maka cared deeply for Soul and enjoyed their current relationship far too much to risk it.

* * *

It was getting dark by the time the final car-full of people pulled up. Kid and the Thompsons had arrived not long after Soul, Maka, Tsubaki, and Black*Star, but once they had gotten settled into their respective rooms, the seven of them found they had a bit of a wait on their hands for the other half of their group. Only a handful of texts from Kilik and Jackie kept them from worrying that something had happened on the road.

As it was, they gathered in the sitting room on the second floor and enjoyed each others’ company while they waited. It had been too long since they’d all had a break together, especially now that Kid had taken the title of Shinigami-sama, and it was refreshing to be able to relax and just hang out together like they had done when they were younger, before the war against Asura had changed their lives. Liz beat each and every one of them at pool, which put a self-satisfied swagger in her step for hours and put Black*Star in a foul mood until Tsubaki distracted him with kisses that had everyone politely averting their eyes. Once the group had officially thrown in the towel and admitted that nobody could beat her, even with Kid’s superhuman eye for angles, Patti had broken out the collection of board games she’d brought with her and coaxed Kid and the girls into a rousing round of Chutes and Ladders. They put on Christmas carols in the background, and with the light snow still falling outside visible through the window wall, it was altogether a festive gathering. Soul even made cocoa- the real stuff, not the powdered kind.

Maka was pleased to see him bustling around the kitchen pouring a ridiculous amount of milk into a pan for the cocoa, because Soul only volunteered for stuff like that when he was in a good mood. She knew he’d been apprehensive about bringing them here, probably because his relationship with his family still wasn’t the best, but the fact that he was as cheerful as the rest of them was a good sign. Sometimes Soul was a little too stuck in his head for his own good. Spending time with their friends was good for him, she thought, and as she watched him distributing steaming mugs with a pleased smile on his face, it warmed something deep inside her. He was so different than he had been when they first met! He was still introverted, which was fine, and he usually preferred to listen rather than speak himself, but his reclusive tendencies and defensiveness had faded over the years. It also helped that his self-conscious-pubescent-male posturing had subsided dramatically as he got more comfortable in his own skin.

Watching him like this, almost grown up, smiling and joking with their other friends, Maka felt a surge of profound pride in her weapon. It was a similar feeling to what she’d felt on the day of Kid’s enthronement as she’d watched him play for all of Death City to hear. She leaned her cheek against the back of the couch and smiled warmly as she savored the feeling as it melded together with the contentment of being together with their friends and a certain flavor of holiday cheer.

From downstairs, a knock on the door could faintly be heard, and Soul went clattering down the stairs to answer it.

A few moments later he emerged again, leading the rest of Spartoi, all wrapped heavily in winter gear and laden with bags. He began directing them to bedrooms, calling down the stairs to inform Kilik that he and the twins had adjoining rooms on the first floor, down the hall from Liz and Patti. Kilik could be heard voicing his understanding faintly from downstairs.

"If you need any help finding the right room just yell," Soul called down, shifting the suitcase he was carrying to his other hand. "I’ll get everybody situated up here."

"How was the drive?" Liz asked Jackie.

The lantern weapon gave an obviously forced smile. “It was good. I mean, Harvar took the wrong highway out of DC and ended up in Albuquerque and had to swing back north, which is why it took us an extra six hours to get here, but other than that we didn’t have any trouble. Except, um-“

"Soul," Ox Ford said loudly, "I hate to be a bother but I’m going to have to ask you to rearrange the room assignments."

"Uh, why?" Soul asked, looking mildly peeved.

"Kim and I have parted ways and no longer wish to share a room," he said bluntly, turning a sour look on the pink-haired witch standing by Soul’s elbow.

"Except _that,_ " Jackie whispered, just low enough that the preoccupied ex-lovers wouldn’t hear her. "I think it happened this morning. They were sniping at each other the whole drive." She shuddered visibly.

Maka, Liz, Tsubaki, and Kid made sympathetic faces. Patti probably would have as well, but she was too busy arm-wrestling Black*Star for the last of the cocoa.

"Yeah, uh, I guess I can figure something out," Soul said, ignoring the side conversation. "Tell you what, we can put you down on the first floor with Harvar. There’s a rollaway bed in that room, so you guys can share."

"That will be perfect, thank you," Ox said with a haughty little sniff in Kim’s direction. Clutching his suitcase, he descended back downstairs to rejoin his weapon.

Seeing that Jackie was now absorbed in conversation with Liz, Soul shrugged and turned to Kim. “Anyway,” he said a little awkwardly, “I guess the room up here’s still yours then. I can show you where it is if you want?”

Kim nodded enthusiastically, plastering a bright smile onto her face and patting Soul’s bicep. “Yes, and thank you _so_ much for carrying my suitcase for me! I should’ve never packed more than I can carry with magic.”

"Uh… yeah," Soul said blankly. "You’re in the one at the end of the hall, between Kid and Jackie, so…" He led her away, with Kim still clinging a little too close to him.

From the hallway her voice could be heard echoing back as she chirped, “Wow, Soul, this place is huge, and so _nice!_ Your parents must be _really_ wealthy to afford a place like this!”

Maka stared at the dim doorway, eyes narrowed confusedly and with a slight weight of suspicious discomfort forming in her gut. Across the room, Jackie’s eyes also rested on the doorway her meister had vanished through, before her gaze fell sadly to her lap and she nodded inattentively along to whatever Liz was saying.


	3. Dec. 28th

No one in their right minds would describe Soul as an early riser. He liked to get in his solid eight(een) hours. In fact, if you were to ask his partner when she was in an off mood, she would peevishly describe him as narcoleptic if he didn't get sufficient sleep each night. He had a blessed ability to fall asleep anywhere and everywhere and sleep deeply virtually always, but tended to be cranky and drowsy if by some chance he was unable to get sufficient sleep.

Sleeping under a roof belonging to his parents was _not_ conducive to getting sufficient sleep.

Soul suspected it was the smell. The private ski lodge where he had spent many a winter holiday during his childhood still smelled just as it had when he was young, a sort of musky, piney scent that he'd never smelled anywhere else but here. Although his memories of this place were mostly pleasant, it was still vividly reminiscent of a time when he had not been a very happy person. It was unsettling.

He had passed the night tossing fitfully, dozing off for what might have been minutes or hours at a time before twitching awake. The furnace that heated the lodge seemed to be turned up too high, and he spent half the night kicking his quilt off repeatedly when it got too hot for him to stand it, then yanking it back up when he realized that it wasn't _quite_ warm enough to go without covers at this altitude. All told, he was in a foul mood when he finally gave up the game at what the clock on the nightstand told him was a little after eight in the morning. Well, if he couldn't sleep, at least he could eat something.

Soul stumbled down the hallway still dressed in his sweatpants and an old t-shirt, rubbing sleepily at one eye. He perked up slightly at the sound of voices coming from downstairs, and descended the stairs to the bottom floor, ears pricked curiously.

Tsubaki and Maka, he found, had taken over the kitchen and were midway through preparing what Soul could only assume were enough pancakes to feed a small army. And considering that was exactly who was currently residing in the lodge, perhaps that was appropriate.

Soul's train of thought was derailed when Maka turned around, a bowl of batter in her hands. She was still in her pajamas and her hair was falling loose around her shoulders, and she had a smudge of flour across her cheek. When she caught sight of him, her already cheerful smile widened into a beaming grin, and it was all Soul could do to keep from melting into a stupidly uncool puddle right there on the floor. Sometimes, in the midst of all the death scythe-wielding and the Maka-chopping and the kishin-slaying, he forgot that his meister wasn't just death on legs, she was also _adorable as all hell_. Which, of course, made the moments he was reminded of it all the more powerful in contrast.

He offered her a soft grin of his own in return, and was pleased to see that her cheeks pinked slightly as she turned back to hand the bowl she was carrying off to Tsubaki. "Perfect timing, Soul," she said. "You can get started on the bacon for us."

Soul groaned and hung his head tiredly. "Do I have to?"

Maka made a threatening gesture with a spoon. "Yes! Tsubaki's been working at this even longer than I have and she could use some more help. Now get your butt over here."

With an exasperated groan that sounded at least twice as annoyed as he actually was, Soul slumped across the room to do as he was told.

* * *

The smell of bacon frying roused the rest of the household, and over the course of the next ten minutes they came stumbling into the kitchen in varying states of half-awake, most of them still in their pajamas. The dining area was quickly filled with people, and Soul, Maka, and Tsubaki had their hands full trying to get breakfast to table as quickly as possible, a task made slightly more difficult by the fact that Tsubaki had decided to make four different kinds of pancakes on top of the ordinary buttermilk ones.

Last to arrive were Liz and Patti. The younger Thompson was drowsy and yawning, draped over her sister's back and sleepily half-dragging her feet behind her. Liz deposited her in a chair next to Kid, who was busy tidily bisecting his pancakes, then flopped into a chair beside Kilik, looking exhausted. "Coffee?" she mumbled hopefully.

Kilik grinned, and left off scolding Thunder for trying to put syrup in her brother's hair. He reached for the carafe of strong black coffee in the middle of the table. "Hey, Soul, can we get a fresh mug over here?" he called. "Sid's about to have some company in the walking dead category if we don't get Liz perked up."

Liz groaned and flopped a hand in Kilik's direction in a half-hearted attempt to smack him on the shoulder. "Shaddup, I had to share a bed with Patti last night."

"So?"

"She kicks. It's been so long, I forgot how much she kicks."

Kilik made a sympathetic face, distractedly thanking Soul as he passed him clean white mug. He poured steaming coffee into the mug and handed it off to a grateful Liz. "I know what you mean. Sometimes these two-" he jerked his head in the direction of his weapons, "-used to have nightmares and they would always come invade my bed when it happened."

Fire glared at him. "Did not!"

"Did so." He ruffled the young boy's hair playfully. "Eat your pancakes, kid."

Liz hid her grin in a sip of coffee. "You're good with them," she commented, ignoring Fire sticking his tongue out at her.

Kilik shrugged. "They didn't have any family when they were brought to Shibusen," he said. "Someone has to look out for them."

"And you're just the man for the job, huh?" she rejoined, smiling openly this time.

"Aw, c'mon, Liz," Kilik said, a cocky grin spreading across his face. "I'm just the man for _any_ job. You've worked with me before, you know I'm flexible."

A lesser woman than Elizabeth Thompson would have blushed at the innuendo. As it was, she settled for smirking back at Kilik as if to say "prove it" and simultaneously hurling a sausage with pinpoint accuracy across the table at Black*Star, who was mime-gagging at them.

"Nice aim!" Kilik remarked, looking suitably impressed.

Liz's smirk grew wider. "I _am_ a pistol," she pointed out. "Aiming is my job."

"Fair point."

Presently Soul joined the group at the table, having finished the jobs Maka had assigned him upon his appearance at the kitchen. He took the empty seat between Kim and Harvar, digging into his breakfast with gusto. At his arrival, Liz turned a friendly glare on him. "So I was doing a little exploring last night before I went to bed. Soul, you didn't tell us this place has a jacuzzi!" she said accusingly.

He swallowed a large bite of pancake and shrugged unconcernedly. "Slipped my mind."

"Aw man, you're kidding!" Kilik exclaimed, looking vastly disappointed. "If I'd known your folks had a jacuzzi I'd have brought my swim trunks!"

"Who needs a swim suit anyway?" Liz rejoined. "After all, isn't underwear pretty much the same thing?" She winked at Kilik, who gulped.

Kim leaned close to Soul's ear, making him jump, and whispered, "Sounds like Liz has been taking lessons from that sex kitten roommate of yours."

"What?" Soul spluttered. "Maka's not-!"

"Not _Maka_ ," Kim said with a roll of her striking turquoise eyes. "I meant Blair, silly."

Soul exhaled heavily, running a hand awkwardly through his hair. "Uh, yeah. Of course. Dunno why I thought you meant Maka. 'Cause, y'know, she's Maka and… uh…"

"I understand what you mean, Soul," Kim said, patting his upper arm reassuringly. Soul got the impression that she didn't understand at all, especially when her fingers lingered a little extra-long on his bicep. Both Ox and Jackie followed the action closely, and neither of them looked especially happy.

Soul would rather deal with an angry lantern and a jealous spear-meister any day, however, over the consequences of pissing off Maka. He could feel his partner's eyes boring into the back of his head as she loaded up the last plate of pancakes. He wasn't sure if it was because she'd overheard the conversation or if it was because she was jealous, but he hoped very much that it was the latter and was very sure it was actually the former.

He'd been very good about not making any comments about Maka's sex appeal or (supposed) lack thereof since the Book of Eibon. That little misadventure had taught him, if nothing else, that despite outward appearances his meister struggled with insecurities as much as anyone else, and he had no desire to continue contributing to that. It certainly didn't hurt that his female form in the Lust Chapter had been a little too flat-chested for him to get away with making any further comments about his partner's modest chest without someone (probably Black*Star, the loud-mouthed bastard) calling him on it. Some days Soul was certain that his friends lived to embarrass him like that.

And now, of course, she'd probably overheard that little exchange with the witch and taken what he'd said completely wrong. _Way to go, Soul_ , he lamented, completely ignoring whatever comment Kim was currently making.

"Kimiearl," Ox interrupted abruptly, "if you could kindly refrain from flirting, some of us _are_ actually trying to eat, thank you."

"Well then if you want to create a pleasant dining environment so badly, maybe you should consider putting a bag over your head," Kim shot back peevishly. "I can talk to whoever I want, Ox."

"So, Soul!" Tsubaki interrupted loudly, trying as always to make peace as quickly as possible, "Whoever your family had stock the kitchen didn't do a very good job. I'm not sure they knew how many of us were going to be here, because we used up all the milk and most of the eggs just on breakfast this morning, so I was thinking I might drive down into town today and pick up some groceries."

Soul shook his head. "Nah, you don't have to do that. I can just call the guy-"

"No, it's fine," Tsubaki said. "I need to go rent ski gear anyway, so I might as well do both things, right?"

Soul shrugged. "Fine, whatever works."

This touched off a flurry of planning for the day. After a lively discussion on the subject, it was decided that a whole group was driving back down into town to take care of some errands before officially hitting the slopes tomorrow. Tsubaki, Jackie, and the Thompsons immediately volunteered to go into town. Kilik had been planning on going as well, even though he had brought his own snow gear and didn't actually need anything, because the twins needed ski rentals. However, Liz volunteered to take charge of Fire and Thunder for the day and get them the things they would need, leaving Kilik free to join Black*Star and Harvar in scoping out the ski areas upslope and figuring out the best places to start the next day. Maka, for her part, planned to stay in the lodge and enjoy the view, since Soul had offered her the use of his mother's ski gear, which was just about the right size for her.

Kid had been planning on joining the group to go into town in order to ensure that Liz and Patti's gear met his standards, but shortly before they were all to set out, a call came through on the mirror from Sid and he was forced to decline at the last minute in order to speak to the teacher he had left in charge of Shibusen in his absence. Ox enthusiastically claimed his seat in Harvar's van once it became clear that Kim wasn't planning on going.

"Wait, don't you need ski stuff too, Kim?" Jackie asked.

The pink-haired witch waved a hand lightly. "Yeah, but I don't really feel like going all the way down. You know my sizes, right?"

Jackie's face fell, but she nodded. "I can take care of it. But you're paying me back for the rental fee!"

"Sure, sure," Kim agreed. Turning away from her weapon, she asked, "What are you gonna do while everyone's gone, Soul?"

"Probably chop some firewood. There's a big stack of logs behind the house, but it needs to be cut if it's actually gonna be worth burning, so I figured I'd deal with that."

"Wow!" she said. "Sounds interesting!"

He raised a pale eyebrow at her. "It's cutting wood, it's about as interesting as watching paint dry, Kim."

"Well then, maybe it's just you," she said with a coy smile.

Ox looked nauseated.

"You know what?" Make said, getting to her feet with a disgusted look on her face, "I changed my mind. I think I'll go into town after all. Is there still room in your van for one more, Harvar?"

"Should be," he said. "You're small. We can squeeze you in the back between Fire and Thunder."

"I thought you were gonna try to finish that book!" Soul protested. He had actually been looking forward to the house being mostly empty for a few hours, just him and Maka. Well, and Kim, but it was a big house. Sure, it was just him and Maka (and occasionally Blair) at home, too, but there was a difference between being alone in their home that they saw every day and being alone in a private ski cabin in the mountains. There was something kind of romantic about the latter and, okay, he and Maka weren't together, but he was working on that. A few hours alone, a cozy fire… that was something he could work with, dammit! Why did she have to go and change her mind?

"The book's going to be there when I get back," Maka said, and for the first time Soul regretted using that argument to get her out of the house so many times over the years. "I'd like to spend some time with our friends while we're all together like this."

"But-!"

Soul didn't really have an argument against that that didn't make him sound pathetic and incredibly uncool, but even if he'd had one, Maka had already stomped out of the dining room and up the stairs and it wouldn't have done him any good.

Kid, who had returned just in time to catch the tail end of the conversation, gave Soul a sympathetic grimace.

"What did Sid want, Kid?" Liz asked.

The shinigami sighed. "Nothing of importance after all. He was a little concerned about a minor argument that occurred yesterday between Azusa and Mabaa's high chancellor, but it most likely will turn out to be nothing. I think he's a little paranoid, since this is the first time I've left Death City on anything besides official business since my enthronement."

"Sid always did like to dot his i's and cross his t's," Jackie observed.

"Yeah, that's just the kind of man he used to be," Harvar said, straight-faced.

The whole table dissolved into raucous laughter, earlier unpleasantness forgotten.

* * *

It took Soul longer than anticipated to chop the firewood. It probably didn't help that he'd procrastinated for three or four hours watching the Death City Devils game on the flat screen, but the actual chore itself took an ungodly amount of time. He only wanted to have to do this once this week if he could help it, so he had a sizable amount of work to do, and he ran into a bit of a sticking point when he couldn't find the axe. Whether it had been misplaced over the years or simply stolen, he wasn't sure, but eventually he just resorted to using his own bladed arm to complete the task. He was a whole lot sharper than any inanimate tool, but he also had a hard time getting the right angle and leverage to split the logs, making the whole process take twice as long as it should have.

By the time he heard the rumble of Harvar's van pulling up on the other side of the house, his shoulders were sore, his lack of sleep was catching up to him, and he kept having to stop to blow his nose because the freezing cold mountain air was making it run. It was putting him in the kind of mood where all he wanted to do was go on a mission, just so he'd have an excuse to stab something. He took his frustration out on the wood he was working on as best he could, but that only served to make him clumsy.

"Do you need any help with that?" Kim asked. Soul nearly jumped in startlement, not having heard her approach. He was surprised to see her, as she'd mostly left him alone once everybody else left.

"Uh… no, I've got it," he said.

She smiled, and he was relieved to see that it seemed to be a guileless, friendly smile. He'd been getting the sense, since she'd arrived last night, that maybe she was hitting on him or something, as weird as that was. Maybe it was some kind of hormonal girl-response because she was single again? Whatever it was, it looked like she'd gotten it out of her system.

"Are you sure? Because I could just take care of all this with magic," she offered.

Soul shook his head, sinking his blade into another piece of wood, willing her to go away. Just because she wasn't inappropriately invading his personal space anymore didn't mean he wanted her hanging around watching him make a fool of himself trying to cut some goddamn wood. "Thanks, but I'm almost done," he said gruffly.

A new voice piped up, "You're gonna make your blade go dull."

Soul paused and glanced over his shoulder, his right limb still sunk deep into a cedar log. Maka was standing there, and although her expression was neutral, her eyes betrayed that she had a bee up her butt. Whether it was _again_ or _still_ , he wasn't totally sure, but he resigned himself to the fact that he was going to have to deal with whatever it was.

Kim, he noticed, had caught onto Maka's mood a whole lot faster than she'd caught onto his, and she was making a tactful exit from the scene.

"My blades don't go dull, Maka," he pointed out. "You know that. They're not inanimate objects, they're part of my body."

"My mistake," she said coolly. She tossed her hair over her shoulder. Ordinarily he would have been enjoying that she was wearing it down to accommodate her winter hat, but at the moment he was feeling too surly to care, and the fact that he didn't care just pissed him off more.

"Jeez, what crawled up your butt and died?" he muttered. "You've been in a mood all day."

"Says the boy who woke up on the wrong side of the bed and about six hours too early," she said scathingly. "Don't throw stones when you live in a glass house, _Soul_."

He turned away, not wanting to deal with this anymore. "At least I've been pleasant," he grumbled.

And he had, for the most part, because this was a vacation and he didn't feel the need to ruin it for everybody just because he hadn't gotten a decent night's sleep. _It would be nice if Ox and Kim could pay everybody else the same courtesy_ , he thought grumpily.

"Whatever," Maka scoffed, and he heard the crunch of her boots as she tramped away through the snow. Jeez, even her footsteps sounded angry.

Seriously, what was her problem?

* * *

When they had all gone their separate ways that morning, they had left the dishes unfinished, and the kitchen was a disaster. Upon seeing the state of things, Maka immediately fell to the task of tidying up. Cleaning was a soothing, repetitive kind of chore that always made Maka feel a little better when she was in a funk. It made her feel in control of her environment even if she wasn't in control of herself, which she rather felt was the case at the moment.

She was being ridiculous. She _knew_ she was being ridiculous and she kind of wanted to Maka-chop herself for it, but she couldn't help herself. She'd thought going into town with Tsubaki and the others had given her time to get over Kim's little display at breakfast, but when she'd gotten back and seen the two of them having what looked like a cozy little chat… Well, it was safe to say she'd lost her temper a bit, which wasn't really fair.

She had no business being snippy with Soul. After all, it wasn't his fault that Kim seemed to have latched onto him like a limpet. He certainly wasn't encouraging her. Even if he was, though, Maka wouldn't really have had a leg to stand on. Soul was not her romantic property. He was perfectly free to flirt with or date whomever he liked.

She didn't realize how hard she was scrubbing on the syrup-encrusted plate in her hands until she lost her grip and it went shooting down into the sink. It was extremely lucky the thing didn't break. Taking a deep breath, Maka forced her muscles to relax, and returned to the chore with a little less vigor.

Despite the fact that she had decided a long time ago that no matter what she felt about Soul, escalating their relationship wasn't a good idea, the knowledge didn't seem to be translating to the part of her brain that controlled her emotions. Seeing Kim being so coy and flirtatious with Soul had sparked a fit of futile possessiveness that boiled in her blood.

She hated how easily she got jealous when other girls took an interest. After all, he certainly couldn't blame them. Soul's looks were a little unusual but he was very attractive, as she would be the first to admit- though not where he would be able to hear her. At least she had gotten better at ignoring his gaggle of fangirls from the NOT class, mostly because Soul rejected them out of hand and never seemed to pay any mind to them at all. It was easy to ignore the competition when they weren't actually competition.

Not, of course, that there actually was any competition. Soul had made it clear in the past- and again today, though at least he'd had the good grace not to say it to her face- that he found her about as attractive as a rock. Maka wasn't especially self-conscious about how she looked, but given that more often than not she practically drooled if Soul saw fit not to put a shirt on after showering, it would've been gratifying if he found her at least a little bit sexy.

 _That whole thing was just so_ stupid, she thought, taking her frustration out on the griddle as she scrubbed cooked-on pancake bits off the surface. It wasn't as if she had any intention of making a move on Soul herself, so why should she begrudge Kim for trying? Kim was had broken up with Ox again, too, so she wasn't doing anything wrong. Maka just couldn't understand why it should bother her so much more to see Kim flirting with Soul than any of the dozens of other girls who had tried their hand with him.

Maybe it was just because Kim was their friend. She wasn't some nearly-anonymous fangirl among many. She was someone they were close to, somebody Soul actually did care about. Soul wasn't interested- at least, Maka _hoped_ he wasn't, because she didn't know if she could stomach watching him date- but Kim definitely had a better shot than some curly-haired bimbo three years younger. Yes, that was probably it. Just the fact that there was a greater chance he'd take the bait for once had her on edge.

Ironically, it actually calmed her down somewhat to understand what it was that had set her off.

"Maka-chan?" Tsubaki's soft voice broke in on her thoughts.

Maka rearranged her face into something more pleasant than a thoughtful grimace and turned to catch the older girl's eye. "Hey, Tsubaki."

"Would you like me to help dry?" she offered.

"I'm fine, but I won't say no if you want to help."

Tsubaki grabbed a towel and jumped in immediately, grabbing a plate from the drying rack. They worked in friendly silence for a minute or two, before the weapon asked, "Maka, did you notice anything… odd about Black*Star today?"

Maka looked up from her task. "What do you mean? Odd how?"

"I'm not entirely sure how to explain…" Tsubaki said. "He just seemed very… focused?"

"Focused on what?"

Tsubaki blushed prettily. "Well… _me_."

Maka laughed. "Tsubaki, you're his girlfriend. It's not weird for him to be focused on you sometimes. He's probably just horny."

The Maka of a few years ago would have blushed saying such a thing, especially about one of her oldest friends; after years of sex talk from Liz and eventually from Tsubaki, from whom she had learned a great deal more about Black*Star's sex life than she _ever_ wanted to know, she had gotten a great deal more comfortable around the subject.

Tsubaki stared into space for a few moments, pondering that suggestion for a moment. Then her face relaxed into a grateful smile. "Thank you, Maka. You're probably right." The tone of her smile shifted into something a little more perverted, and Maka immediately decided she needed to change the subject before she got to hear even _more_ about how good a certain ninja assassin was in bed.

"So, what was that with Liz and Kilik at breakfast this morning?" she asked hurriedly.

"Hm?"

"I dunno, it just seemed like they were flirting a lot. Do you think there's something going on with them?"

Tsubaki shrugged. "I'm not sure. They worked together often while Kid was imprisoned by Noah. Maybe they got closer than we thought?"

Maka pondered this. Kilik _had_ acted as the Thompsons' primary meister while Kid was missing, and they'd gone on missions with him since then if his own weapons were unable to go, but she hadn't thought much of it. "They've always gotten along pretty well," she reasoned.

"I think they'd be very cute together," Tsubaki said enthusiastically.

"It'd definitely be good for Liz to have somebody," Maka agreed. "She's been complaining about Black*Star cock-blocking her for years."

Tsubaki nodded in agreement, and then since neither of the girls was especially inclined to gossip, the conversation wandered in other directions.

* * *

It was another good twenty or thirty minutes before Soul had finally finished his task, and starting to get dark outside. He felt like his entire body had frozen solid and the only thing he wanted in the world was a cup of tea and a hot shower. He stripped off his outerwear and kicked off his boots in the doorway, suddenly grateful that this was his family's place and therefore his territory and therefore Maka couldn't yell at him for leaving his shoes wherever. He'd dealt with enough from her for one day, thanks. Of course, it probably wouldn't stop her if she took it into her head to be pissy, but at least if she wasn't _right_ he could ignore her.

Upon entering the kitchen he found Tsubaki and Maka in the process of putting away the last of the dishes from breakfast.

It wasn't in Soul's nature to hold onto anger for very long, especially when it came to Maka. She got under his skin easily, but she was hard to stay mad at, especially when she was wearing that dorky Christmas sweater he'd gotten her as a gag gift a few years back because it looked horrible and which she'd taken to wearing enthusiastically and often just to spite him.

He resigned himself to the fact that, even though she'd started… _whatever_ it was that had just happened, he felt compelled to put a stop to it and clear the air as soon as possible. He wasn't sure if they were fighting or what, or why she was even so surly in the first place, but he didn't like it when things were weird between them. He hadn't when they were just kids, barely more than strangers, and he definitely didn't now.

"Hey, Maka-" he began.

"I think I'll go to bed!" Maka announced to Tsubaki in a chirpy, forced tone, cutting him off sharply before he could get another word in.

Tsubaki looked sideways at her, then glanced at Soul, then back to Maka, clearly confused. "Are you sure? It's still pretty early, and Patti has more board games…"

Maka shook her head vigorously. "No, I'm sure. If we're all going to get up early to go skiing tomorrow, I want to be well-rested."

"Alright…" Tsubaki said, sounding a little uncertain. "If you say so."

"Yeah. You all enjoy the games. I'll stay up with you all tomorrow, okay?" Maka gave Tsubaki a warm smile, then a brief glance and a jerk of her head that might have been a nod to Soul, and padded out of the kitchen. Once she was gone, Tsubaki looked curiously at Soul, but he just shook his head and squeezed past her to get to the cabinet where the mugs were kept.

There were a lot of good things to be said about Tsubaki, but one of the best, in Soul's opinion, was that she was very good at reading people and knew when to let things drop. Without a single question on the subject of Maka's behavior, she murmured something about making sure Black*Star hadn't gotten into any trouble upstairs and made a tactful exit.

Left to his own devices, Soul set about making tea. Even in their vacation home his parents kept a good stock available, for which he was grateful. Maka was rarely willing to splurge on the real stuff, so he always had to settle for tea bags, which were okay in a pinch but not particularly satisfying or particularly much like tea. But he had a full selection of loose teas to choose from waiting in the cabinet, and the prospect of something hot and minty was enough to perk him up.

"You too, huh?"

Soul looked over his shoulder and found the source of the unexpected voice in one Jacqueline Dupré, leaning against the refrigerator with her arms crossed and her nose wrinkled up in a sympathetic grimace. She was more dressed-down than usual, just jeans and a casual sweatshirt, and it was weird to see the buttoned-up weapon so casual.

"What?"

"Can't keep your meister's eyes on you for more than two seconds, right?" she guessed knowingly.

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I saw you guys snapping at each other earlier," she explained. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised that she's a little annoyed because Kim was hanging all over you earlier. I'm sorry about that, by the way. I've given up trying to reign her in when she gets like this."

Soul's pensive frown deepened. "Is that what's making her so crabby?"

"Probably. Maka's always been kind of possessive of you."

It was a sign of how pathetically far gone he was that this casual observation was enough to make him feel like smiling. "You think so?" he asked, taking his steeping mug of tea from the counter and sitting at the table instead.

Jackie smiled, pushing off the fridge with her hips and moving to join him, dropping gracefully down into a chair opposite him, unfolding her arms at last to lean forward against the table. "Definitely. A couple of my younger friends in the NOT class and I had a running bet about how long it was gonna take for her to completely blow a gasket when you were being stalked so much by all those girls a few years ago. Right after Maka made you a death scythe, remember?"

Soul snorted, but felt a little disappointed all the same. Maka might have a possessive streak, but that whole fiasco had been related to her insecurities as a _meister_. Then again, Kim wasn't just a girl, she was also a meister. He supposed that explained Maka's behavior, at least.

"Shit, yeah… I guess she was a little extra-violent around then, wasn't she?"

"Yeah." The amused spark faded somewhat from Jackie's dark eyes and she looked away from him to stare thoughtfully at the tabletop. "I guess you've got a better chance than I do, anyway."

"Wait, you…?"

"Yep."

"For Kim?"

"Yep."

He blinked. "Oh. I didn't know you-"

"Yeah." She glanced up at him, and her look held a bit of a challenge. "Got a problem with that?"

"Why would I?" Soul shrugged. It was no business of his whom Jackie chose to love, or anybody else for that matter. "So do you think you've got a shot?"

Jackie leaned her cheek against her palm, frowning ponderously. "I dunno. I mean, she's a witch. Gender and sexuality are much more fluid concepts for witch-kind than for most humans, so… maybe?"

"Huh. I didn't know that."

She nodded, still with her head propped against her hand. "There's a lot about witches people don't know."

That was certainly the truth. Things had been improving in incremental fits and starts since Kid and Kim had forged the treaty some years back, but there was still so much both sides didn't understand about each other. Jackie probably knew more about witch society than any other human alive, given her unique access.

"Well, I wish you luck," Soul said.

"And the same to you," she responded with a sardonic quirk of an eyebrow.

He raised his mug. "Here's to being strung-out fools in love, huh?"

She chuckled. "I'd drink to that, but I haven't got a drink."

"Shit, you want something? Coffee or something?"

"A bottle of vodka'd hit the spot right about now, but barring that, the tea actually smells amazing."

Soul grinned. "That, I can manage."

* * *

Kilik had no more ambitious intentions when he left his bedroom than making a quick visit to the restroom. He hadn't intended to cross paths with Liz Thompson, barefoot and wrapped up in a fuzzy white robe (embroidered, he noticed, with little Christmas trees around the wickedly short hem… not that he was staring at her legs or anything). He hadn't intended to follow her after she gave him a long look and a jerk of her head to indicate that he should accompany her. He certainly hadn't intended to end up in the room with the jacuzzi she'd been talking about that morning.

And yet, here he was, watching Liz teasingly untying that teeny tiny bathrobe. Watching her drop it to the floor to stand there in nothing but her underwear. _Oh god she was wearing a thong!_

"Uh…"

"What's the matter?" she asked, flashing him that smirky little grin, like the cat that got the cream, that had been starring in some of his favorite fantasies for _months_.

"Nothing," he spit out quickly, maybe a little too quickly because she had a smug knowing look in her eye. "You sure you wanna do this?"

Liz stepped into the bubbling jacuzzi, and _damn_ , those legs of hers-!

"What's there to be sure about?" she asked, coy. "It's like I said this morning, underwear's just like a swimsuit, right?"

Aw, screw it. A beautiful, interesting girl wanted him to get in a hot tub with her. Who was he to say no?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was posted a few days ago on FF.net but since I was unable to access Ao3 from my phone for some reason, I had to wait until I returned from Arizona to post here. But now here it is. I hope you enjoyed, and encourage you to leave feedback if you have a moment! Thank you for reading!


	4. Dec. 29th

"WAHOOOOOO!"

"Black*Star!"

Tsubaki's anguished yell that echoed across the mountainside was all in vain, for her boyfriend paid her little heed as he went careering down the slope, kicking up enormous plumes of snow with his board that sprayed violently in the faces of innocent skiiers, several of whom proceeded to fall down. The shadow weapon followed more placidly behind Black*Star on her skis, apologizing to those he had drenched in snow and helping them up if need be.

When she finally caught up with him at the bottom of the slope, she had a stern censure all prepared for him. "Black*Star, you have to be more considerate of the other people who are trying to use the slopes! You nearly buried that little boy back there- the poor thing was just learning how to ski."

Black*Star looked unusually contrite under his partner's lecture. "I'm sorry, Tsubaki. I'll try harder to restrain my godly skillz for the sake of those less amazing than me." He made a sweeping gesture to usher her in the direction of the ski lift. "Now come on, let's do that again!"

The slightly confused weapon allowed her boyfriend to guide her to the lift and gallantly hand her into the chair before sitting down himself.

* * *

If it was possible to make someone burst into flames just by glaring at them, then the pink-haired girl currently clinging to the arm of a certain death scythe was just _begging_ to be incinerated. Maka couldn't make out what Kim was saying to her partner, but she could hear the low grumble of Soul's voice and shrill laughter from the witch. Her angry stare intensified as Kim tucked herself a little more securely against Soul.

Maka had been planning on apologizing for being so short with him yesterday, but she hadn't gotten the chance while they were still at the lodge and once they got out on the slopes, Kim had latched onto him. Soul had said days ago that he would teach Maka how to ski, but before they could even get started with the promised lesson, Kim had jumped in and begged Soul to help her, proclaiming that Maka was a much more athletic meister than she was, and therefore would be fine on her own. Which, technically, was true. Maka was struggling, having never skied before in her life, but she was figuring it out just fine on her own. However, she would have done much better with instruction from someone who'd done this before.

She couldn't hold it against Soul, not when he looked so completely and utterly fed up with Kim's antics. The grumpy expression on his face reminded her sharply of an old hound dog being pestered by a puppy and resigning himself to tolerant, patient annoyance.

But when Kim "fell" for the tenth time in the last half hour, which Maka was absolutely positive was a ploy in order to have an excuse to smush herself up against him, she couldn't help but grind her teeth. Maka never understood the kinds of silly games girls played in order to try to get boys to notice them. It wasn't her style, never had been, never would be. Somehow, though, it still managed to be effective time and time again. Her father had fallen victim to it a hundred times just within her line of sight, and he wasn't the only one. Maka really had thought that Soul was smarter than that, though.

Then again, maybe he was. She reevaluated her position slightly when she saw Soul prop Kim back upright and take off down the slope, leaving Kim to follow behind him clumsily- but not nearly as clumsily as she should have been if she was really as graceless and bad at skiing as she claimed to be. _No, Soul wasn't fooled_ , she thought with a smug grin. He wasn't buying Kim's act at all, which meant he wasn't interested, which meant he was free for her to…

Maka sighed. Soul was free for her to do absolutely nothing, as usual. She knew her resolution to remain his friend and _only_ his friend was the right thing to do, but sweet _death_ was it hard some days!

"Hey Maka!" a light, reedy voice called out. Maka turned her head and saw Jackie dismounting gracefully from the lift, her long brown hair loose and gleaming in the winter sunlight as she coasted down to where Maka was hesitating. "What are you still doing up here?"

Admitting that she was hesitant to tackle the slope without further instruction from someone who actually knew what they were doing would be, in the words of her weapon, very uncool. Maka waved her pole around in what she hoped was a breezy and unconcerned manner. "Uh, just taking in the view," she fibbed.

Jackie's mouth quirked up in a knowing smirk. "Don't have a clue what you're doing, do you?"

"Uh… well…"

"Don't worry about it, I'll help you out. I'm Canadian, I've been doing this forever."

Maka was grateful for the cold mountain wind that had been blowing in her face all morning, because her cheeks were already red enough to conceal her embarrassed blush.

Jackie held out a hand. "C'mon, Maka. It's time to graduate from the bunny slope!"

* * *

"Now you gotta keep loose- yeah, just like that. That'll give you more flexibility going down, and keeps you more stable on the curves."

Liz watched from a distance as Kilik walked Patti through the basics of snowboarding. She had finished strapping on her skis awhile ago; now she was just keeping up the pretense of fiddling with them as an excuse to observe him helping her sister without seeming suspicious. He really was a pretty good guy, she reflected. Helpful, friendly, easygoing… he was nice. He was Boyfriend Material. Which, of course, made what had happened last night all the more complicated…

_It had been a long time since she'd been one of the Demons of Brooklyn, a long time since she'd had to struggle and fight and rely on her wits and weapon blood to survive, but Liz had never really lost her taste for power. She knew now how dangerous the craving for power could be and how easily it could lead you astray, but there was a big difference between reveling in a life of violent crime that would have inevitably led to the corruption of her soul, and enjoying the spell her looks could cast on men. Liz was beautiful and she knew it… and, more importantly, she knew how to use it._

_So yes, maybe getting Kilik into the jacuzzi with her had been a power trip more than anything else. Still, she did genuinely enjoy his company._

_The jacuzzi was in a small room extending from the end of the house. Three of the walls were glass, as was the domed ceiling, and if the roof hadn't been covered in a thick layer of snow they would have been able to see the stars. It was secluded and peaceful, and made a nice atmosphere for the two of them to laze around in the hot water, chatting about nothing and playing pass-the-innuendo. And if they kept drifting a little closer to each other, if she laid her hand on his shoulder or his chest when he made her laugh… well, what did it matter? Everything felt just a little dreamlike, just a little surreal. It was a bit like being high; she felt at a pleasant distance from herself, fuzzy and clear at the same time. They talked about nonsense, they talked about their childhoods, they followed where the conversation took them._

" _Man, I can't believe Soul's family owns a place like this," Kilik had remarked._

_Liz nodded, doing her best to pay attention to him even though she was finding the cadence of his voice more interesting than what he was actually saying. "Yeah, who knew he came from money? But I guess Soul's always been kinda secretive."_

_He snorted. "Secretive's the word alright. Dude's awesome, don't get me wrong. He's my bro, y'know? But he's kind of got a thing for melodrama."_

_Liz giggled, thinking back on the fuss and production Soul had made back in the day about playing the piano for anyone besides Maka, and she couldn't help but agree with Kilik's assessment. "You got that right."_

_She studied Kilik's profile, evaluating him as the echo of her laugh faded against the tiles. He had taken off his glasses because they kept fogging up from the hot water, and she couldn't decide if she liked that better. "You look different without your glasses," she remarked._

" _Good different or bad different?"_

_She pursed her lips in a thoughtful little pout. "Good different… I think?"_

_Kilik shook his head, clicking his tongue lightly. "So indecisive," he teased._

" _You like decisive, huh?" she asked, catching onto a thought and riding the crest of impulse right into a passionate kiss that was almost as much of a taunt as it was a pleasure._

A kiss had turned into two, two had turned into many, and they had spent a good long while making out in the water until the bubbler had turned off and interrupted them. After that, they had gone their separate ways, but she had been more than a little pleased by the way Kilik stared at her ass as she climbed out of the jacuzzi.

Breakfast hadn't been as awkward as she'd anticipated, which was a pleasant surprise. There was no uncomfortable eye contact, just an ordinary dose of the kind of casual flirting that they'd become accustomed to these last few months. She'd worn a turtleneck to hide the hickey he'd left on her, and it was like nothing had changed. No one else was any the wiser, although from the way Kid had shot her a few sideways glances out of the corner of his eye, she thought he might suspect something. He'd always been supernaturally good at picking up on what was going on with her and Patti. Whether it was a meister thing or a shinigami thing or just a Kid thing, she didn't know, but she was pretty sure he knew something was up, if not necessarily what exactly it was.

Yet even though nothing had changed… something _had_. She wasn't sure how to define it, and she didn't have the faintest idea what she was going to do about it.

When she spotted Kilik taking off down the slope with a madly cackling Patti in hot pursuit, taking to the new sport like a fish to water, she decided that figuring out what to do about this boy was a problem for Future Liz to deal with. For now… she was going to learn to ski.

Somehow.

Maybe.

Liz screamed as gravity caught hold of her and she went whizzing down the slope, arms flailing wildly as she tried not to fall down.

* * *

"Hey, Kim?"

"What is it, Soul?"

Soul grit his teeth. He had come to know Kim as a temperamental and shallow, but good-hearted and practical girl. She was sensible, if a little rash. The empty, simpering tone she'd been using on him for the last hour or two was not like her at all, and he was getting sick of it. He wasn't interested in her and he was at least 60% certain that she wasn't _really_ interested in him either despite the way she was acting- although to be fair, Kim had been known to be mercurial, so who knew with her?

Whatever. He was running out of patience to deal with this, especially since he had come to the conclusion that Jackie was exactly right, and some kind of possessive meister instinct was behind Maka's attitude yesterday. He didn't need Kim going around making it worse because she wouldn't leave him alone.

"Um, you're a witch."

"Yes?"

"Which means you can fly, right?"

"Well… I mean, not very well, but-" As she hung off his arm for the eight hundredth time that day, her gemstone eyes reflected innocent confusion at his line of questioning. _Innocent_ being a very subjective term, in Soul's opinion.

He gave her a pointed look as he said, "Somebody who can fly shouldn't be falling as much as you've been."

Kim turned absolutely scarlet and let go of his forearm as if she'd been burned through her gloves. "I…"

Soul shook his head. "Look, whatever's going on with you and Ox, could you leave me out of your- your rebound, or whatever this is?"

The pink-haired girl looked down at her feet, shuffling her skis awkwardly. "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable."

Yes, actually, she had. Especially all the talk she'd done the first night they'd arrived about how _nice_ the lodge was and how _rich_ his parents must be to be able to afford it. The invasion of his personal space had been weird, but hearing one of the most renowned gold diggers in Shibusen speculating openly about his family fortune was unsettling for a number of reasons. But Kim looked depressed enough as it was, and it wasn't cool to upset your friends.

Soul shook his head. "Nah, don't worry about it. We're cool."

She beamed at him, visibly relieved. "I'm glad." A devious grin crossed her face, and she jerked her head in the direction of the slope beyond them as she asked, "So, would you mind going down one more time with me? For old time's sake?"

He pondered it for a few moments, because this was Kim and you could never be completely sure that she didn't have some trick up her sleeve, especially with that look in her eyes. But he couldn't see the harm in one last run downslope in her company, considering that she was far less likely to deliberately fall just for an excuse to grab onto him. He tilted his head in assent. "Sure, why the hell not?"

"Race you to the bottom?" she said, and there was a wicked gleam in her eyes.

Soul just had time to recognize that there was no possible way this could end well after all before she took off, not even giving him a chance to agree to race. He swore under his breath as he watched her tear down through the thick snow, fast enough that she had to be using magic to support herself. He pushed off futilely after her, fully aware that he was about to get his ass kicked by someone who'd been falling on _her_ ass all afternoon.

* * *

At the bottom of the slopes was a public lodge for those ski enthusiasts not fortunate enough to have a cabin of their own in the area. The lobby featured a snack bar serving a variety of soups and snacks and hot beverages, and it was at one of the cozy tables by the window that a certain Ox Ford sat staring moodily out the picture window, his unused skis propped against the back of his chair. His coke-bottle glasses had been replaced by a pair of custom protective goggles, which he was still wearing despite being inside rather than out on the slopes. His eyes tracked the progress of a skier with vividly pink hair and a purple jacket. When she reached the bottom safely and performed an exhilarated victory dance that involved flinging herself into the arms of the white-haired young man who reached the bottom shortly after her, he let out a pained groan and dropped his face forward onto the tabletop.

"Wassamatter?" a cheerful but muffled voice asked as a body flopped heavily into the chair across from him.

Ox looked up blearily to find the younger Thompson sister peering at him with guileless blue eyes with a cookie in her mouth. "What?"

She removed the cookie. "I _said_ , what's. the. _matter?_ " she enunciated slowly, as if he were dim. Ox couldn't help but bristle slightly.

"Nothing more serious than a broken heart," he lamented.

"Ohhhhhh," she crooned sympathetically, patting his shaven head, right between his pillars. "Because you and Kimmie broke up. That's too bad, Ox."

He jerked his head away from her tapping fingers, then rested his chin in his hand to gaze mournfully back out the window. "Ah, I've no one to blame but myself."

Patti frowned. "It doesn't seem like that," she said. "It's not your fault she dumped you!"

Ox sat fully upright again, outraged. "I beg your pardon! Kim did not _dump_ me-!"

She flapped a hand in his face to silence him. "Blah blah blah, whatever," she interrupted. "Whatever you call it, it's gotta suck, huh?"

"I… I suppose, yes."

She flashed him a wild grin that every member of Spartoi had long since learned meant that they should be very, very afraid. Patti with an idea in her head was a dangerous thing, no matter how angelic she looked in her white snowsuit and with her tousled mop of blonde hair gleaming in the sunlight like a halo. "Well you're not gonna fix it by being a Mr. Mopey-mope in here!" she proclaimed. "You need to get out on the powder!"

"Um-"

"If you don't wanna be around Kimmie, you can come with me! Kilik taught me how to snowboard, and I'm getting really good!"

"I, uh-"

"Yeah! I'm gonna finish my hot chocolate and eat my cookie and then we're gonna go ski!" Patti looked excessively taken with this idea, and Ox didn't have the heart- or, more accurately, the balls- to deny her. Saying "no" to Patricia Thompson, after all, was an excessively bad idea; her sister would take care of anything she left behind, which usually wasn't much to begin with.

Resigned to his fate, Ox watched with slight apprehension as the curvy blonde guzzled her entire cup of scalding cocoa in less than a minute, then devoured the rest of her cookie.

"Come on!" she said, leaping to her feet. She grabbed Ox by the wrist and, barely allowing him a moment to grab onto his skis and poles, hauled him forcibly out into the snow. She gave him the bare minimum of time to snap his skis into place on his boots and then she was dragging him towards the waiting area for the lift. "The line's not very long right now," she informed him solemnly, "So we'll get to the top really fast."

"Yes, that is usually how it works," Ox responded sardonically. The next thing he knew, he was being shoved into a lift and the ground was vanishing from beneath his feet.

"Maybe we can find Harvar. I bet he'd like to ski with us." Patti leaned forward to peer down, making the open chair rock dangerously.

Ox went a bit green and grabbed tightly to the side.

After the most nerve-wracking chairlift ride of Ox's life and a few minutes of wandering around the open area at the top of the slopes, they did indeed find his weapon hanging around the bunny slope. Harvar, looking thoroughly uninterested in the whole business, had taken charge of Fire and Thunder with his usual flavor of detached acceptance.

"I was trying to teach them to ski, but-" Harvar cut his eyes at the twins he was supervising. The ten-year-old weapons appeared to have completely lost interest in skiing, if indeed they'd ever had any. They were rolling around on the ground, alternating between making snow angels and attempting to stuff handfuls of snow down each others' coats.

"Looks like you've got your hands full," Ox observed.

Harvar pursed his lips in an unamused expression. "I'm getting bored of this."

Patti fluffed out her wind-tossed hair with one hand as she watched the twins playing. The inspired gleam in her eye as she watched them roughhousing in the snow did not inspire confidence in Ox in the slightest. He tightened his coat nervously, hoping to prevent any snowy assaults on his bare skin, at least. He'd seen her fight Black*Star one on one, and if she could take on an absolute beast like that cretinous ninja, Ox didn't even want to think about what would happen to him if he pissed her off. Hoping to avoid having to be alone with her and potentially suffering the consequences he felt he had been mercifully spared thus far, Ox asked, "Why don't you come ski with us?"

Harvar shrugged. "I would, but I've got to watch these two." He jerked his head at the twins.

Ox felt his chance at salvation slipping slowly away. "No!" he protested, a little desperately. "As your meister, I-I command you to come with us!"

His weapon glanced at the blonde who was still staring at the squabbling children, then back at Ox, and raised a mocking eyebrow. Ox pleaded silently with Harvar, hoping he would give in and spare Ox from being tackled into the snow or pushed off a cliff or whatever other mad thing Patricia Thompson might take it into her head to do to him. With a smirk on his face, Harvar shrugged and agreed, "If I can find somebody else to deal with Fire and Thunder. Where's Kilik anyway?" he asked Patti. "He ditched me with these two when he ran off to teach _you_ to board."

The blonde shrugged. "I don't know. He was with Sissy when I went to get cocoa."

Harvar's face was expressionless, but Ox had been partnered with him for long enough to recognize a tiny spark of suspicion in his grey eyes. He looked over Ox's shoulder and shouted out, "Hey, Tsubaki! Would you mind looking after Fire and Thunder for a minute?"

Tsubaki, who had just dismounted the chairlift alongside her meister, waved. "Sure!" she called back, changing course to join them.

"I'll meet you by the bottom of the lift in a little while," Harvar said, turning back to his partner. "I'm gonna go find Kilik and tell him it's his turn to deal with the kids."

He strapped his skis back on and abandoned the bunny hill with more enthusiasm than Ox could remember seeing him display for anything in years.

"So," Patti said, drawing out the 'o' for an unreasonably long time. "Ready to go?"

"What?" Ox asked, confused.

She flashed him that manic grin of hers once more and launched herself onto the nearest slope. Ox glanced at the rating sign, then did a double take. "Wait, no!" he shouted. "Patti, that's a black diamond-!" He lurched forward to try and stop her, but she was already long gone, cackling loudly as she cut sharp zig-zags across the slope. Ox pushed after her, chanting prayers to Kid or the late Shinigami-sama or any deity that would listen that he would make it to the bottom in one piece.

* * *

Tsubaki sat down in the snow to keep an eye on the Pots, removing her skis to make herself more comfortable. Black*Star, to her immeasurable surprise, volunteered to stay with her and keep her company while she weapon-sat. He filled her in on the mission they had been assigned shortly before they left on this vacation, a nest of pre-kishin in Namibia that were too strong for an ordinary weapon and meister, but not quite strong enough to justify calling out their witch allies. It sounded like an interesting mission, and Tsubaki was glad he had taken it on, because they'd been stuck in and around Death City for too long.

Tsubaki began to grow a little uncomfortable sitting in the snow. She liked looking after Fire and Thunder. They were good kids, fun to play with if they wanted to play with others, and easy to look after if they just wanted to play with each other. But sitting here watching as they pelted each other with snowballs was getting chilly. While they had been skiing, the exercise had kept her warm, almost uncomfortably so. As she sat on the ground, however, she began to feel cold as her sweat cooled beneath her coat and the dampness of the snow began to seep through her slick snow-pants.

Black*Star noticed immediately that she was shivering. After all these years, it still surprised Tsubaki how attuned to her he could be. She knew her partner best, and she knew better than anyone that there was so much more to him than the loudmouth he was known as, but that side of him was still so prominent that even she was sometimes caught off guard when he proved to be observant and empathetic.

"You're cold," he stated.

She smiled at him. "Only a little."

The offer to go back down to the lodge and purchase her a cup of cocoa, she had expected; the coat he immediately stripped off and wrapped around her shoulders, she had not.

"You don't have to," she protested, trying to hand his jacket back to him. "You'll get cold yourself!"

Black*Star shook his head, refusing to take the coat back even as she pushed it against his hands. "Even someone as amazing as I am can't leave his body heat behind while he goes to fetch her hot chocolate, so my coat is going to have to keep my lady warm for me!" So saying, he took off down the slope, still kicking up big plumes of snow from his board- though she was relieved to see that he was still holding to his promise to exercise _some_ restraint, at least.

Tsubaki watched him go until he rounded a bend and disappeared from view. Then, a soft little smile on her lips, she wrapped his coat around her after all. Then she turned her attention back to the twins. Making sure they didn't get too close to the tops of any of the steeper slopes took up most of her focus until her boyfriend returned.

A good ten minutes later, Black*Star hopped off the lift, just barely avoiding dumping the entire cup of cocoa over in his eagerness. He grinned at Tsubaki and held it out to her. Gratefully she reached for the hot beverage, but before she could grasp it, he pulled it back and took her hand in hers instead. To her utter consternation, he bowed over her hand and dropped a kiss on her knuckles through her knit gloves. Then, straightening up, he handed her the cocoa. "For you," he said proudly.

She laughed, feeling a blush spread across her face as he flopped down in the snow next to her and tucked her under his arm.

"Black*Star, are you alright?" she asked.

"Uh- of course," he said. "Why wouldn't I be?"

And she would have believed him, except for the fact that he sounded so apprehensive when he said it. Black*Star was many things, but good at pretending about his emotions was not one of them.

"Are you sure?" she asked coaxingly. "You're acting a little strange.

Black*Star let out a peal of raucous, too-loud laughter. "I think you've been out in the cold too long, Tsubaki! I'm not acting strange at all."

She sighed, and leaned against him to take advantage of his body heat. "If you say so," she murmured, sipping at the cocoa.

* * *

Liz's hat with the fluffy blue pom-pom fell from her head as Kilik's fingers raked through her hair. She pushed him more harshly against the tree he was pinned against in retaliation, nipping at his lower lip teasingly. He let out a groan and broke from her mouth, dropping his lips to her throat, licking and kissing his way down her jawline and neck until he found that one particular spot that made Liz's entire body light up like a Christmas tree. It was her turn to moan, inwardly cursing the thick winter clothing they were both wearing that was preventing her access to his rather fantastic body.

"What… the hell… are we doing?" he panted in between planting open-mouthed kisses to her skin.

"Damned if I know," she mumbled. She grabbed aggressively onto his dreadlocks, longer now than they had been when they were in school, and pulled his mouth back to hers for another heated kiss.

And she really didn't. She had fallen, he had caught her, their eyes had met for a second, and then they were scrambling off the ski trail into the concealing trees and she was slamming him up against a trunk while he groped her through her jacket. It was just like last night, one thing had just led to another and she was trying hard not to overanalyze it at the moment because _damn_ this boy could do amazing things with his lips.

A stern cough interrupted both her train of thought and that fantastic thing Kilik was doing with his tongue. Liz sprang away from him, fighting to straighten out her coat as best she could.

Harvar was standing a ways off the trail, staring them with something that might have been a wry smirk on his lips- though with Harvar it was often hard to tell.

As Liz combed her fingers through her hair and picked up her hat, out of the corner of her eye she spotted Kilik trying to inconspicuously zip up his fly. If anyone asked, she had _absolutely no idea_ how that had happened.

"Uh, we were just-" she began.

Harvar interrupted her. "You might want to be more discreet. There are children around."

She was not blushing, she was not blushing, she was _NOT blushing!_ Dammit, her piece of shit mother was a hooker and she herself was a sexually liberated modern woman; she shouldn't feel embarrassed to be caught making out with some guy! "Screw you, Harvar," she muttered, provoking an honest-to-god smile on the usually inscrutable weapon's face. A small one, but still.

"Where are Fire and Thunder, man?" Kilik asked.

Harvar shrugged. "I was getting bored of watching them, so I left them up by the bunny slope with Black*Star."

"What?" Kilik exclaimed. "Are you _insane?_ "

He grabbed his snowboard from where it had been discarded on the ground and sprinted off. Just before he emerged from the trees and back on the trail, he glanced back. "Uh, I'll catch up with you later, Liz?"

"Yeah, sure." She waved, signalling to him to get going.

Once Kilik had vanished from sight she asked Harvar, "Did you really leave the Pots with Black*Star?"

He shrugged. "Black*Star… and Tsubaki."

Liz snorted, torn between amusement and peevish frustration. "You're a first-rate cockblocker, you know that, Harvar? You should consider making a career out of it," she snarked at him.

"Yeah, well, this isn't the time or the place, is it?" he said dryly.

"Even if it isn't, it's not really any business of yours."

Picking up her skis from their spot on the ground, she flounced past him to return to the slope.

* * *

At the end of the day, they all piled back into Harvar's van and Black*Star's SUV to make their way back downslope. Once they returned to the Evans' ski lodge, everyone changed out of their wet clothing and crowded into the kitchen for dinner, which Tsubaki prepared at her own insistence.

Their ski day was considered by all to be a rousing success, with only one sour note in the form of a twisted ankle for Ox. Late in the afternoon he had fallen wrong when a pair of kids who weren't looking where they were going cut him off. Patti had carried him back down the hill, much to his consternation, and when he told the story later he informed everyone that he had manfully borne up under the pain and walked the rest of the way down himself. He would have gotten away with it, too, because Patti certainly didn't mind the white lie for the sake of his vanity, but Kim had seen what happened and spilled the beans.

The resulting spat at the table made an otherwise pleasant dinner highly uncomfortable for everyone, and in the end only a thorough chastisement from Kid (backed up by the threat of a Maka-chop or two) calmed the two of them down enough to get back to the meal.

"I'm afraid I have a bit of bad news," Kid announced once peace had been restored. "I received another call from Sid earlier, and he has requested that I return to Death City to address a small situation that has arisen."

"Anything we should be worried about?" Soul asked.

"I doubt it," Kid said with a shrug. "I believe Sid is simply a little over-cautious. It's not surprising, since my father never left Death City for reasons we all know. Having a shinigami who's capable of going on vacation must be a significant adjustment for the staff members of Shibusen. But even if that's the case, it's better for me to return to Death City tonight and make sure rather than make any assumptions and regret it later."

"Do you want us to come with you, Kid?" Liz asked, looking thoroughly put out at the prospect.

Kid shook his head. "No, I doubt that will be necessary. I don't anticipate any violence, but even if something should come up, Spirit is still stationed at Shibusen, as always."

With his departure announced, Kid steered the conversation back to more pleasant subjects, skillfully negating the awkwardness of Ox and Kim's very public fight.

* * *

It was several hours later, after Kid had taken off on Beelzebub, that Maka found Soul alone in the kitchen, doing the dishes that had been left when everybody else moved upstairs to laze around a merry fire. She observed him for a moment as he worked. He had the sleeves of his sweater rolled up past his elbows and his face was a little flushed from a combination of wind burn and the hot water he was working in. Maka tried and failed to squelch the thought that he looked positively yummy, because what the hell kind of descriptor was _yummy_ , anyway?

She felt a little shy. Facing him one on one after yesterday was kind of embarrassing. She knew she needed to apologize, but it was going to be difficult to figure out how to do that without admitting to the fact that she was absolutely _blazingly_ jealous that another girl was giving him attention.

"Needed a break from all the noise?" she asked.

Soul nodded, still intent on the burned on bits of cheese around the edge of the casserole dish he was scrubbing. "Yeah, it's kinda crowded."

Without another word, Maka took up a dish towel and began drying the stack of clean dishes he'd made on the draining board. They worked quietly for a time, only the clink of silverware and the slosh of the water breaking the silence.

After a few minutes, Maka prodded Soul gently with her elbow.

"Mm?"

"Soul, I'm sorry I was… kind of short with you yesterday."

"S'okay," he grunted.

Maka shook her head, setting aside the glass she had just dried. She patted his elbow to get him to look at her. "No, it's not, Soul. I was mad at… uh, at somebody else, but I took it out on you. That's not okay."

His neutral expression relaxed as his lips ticked upward at the corners. "Not the coolest move you've ever made, no."

She swatted him lightly with a dishtowel. "Are you gonna let me apologize or are you gonna be snarky?"

"Can't I do both?"

"You're lucky everything on this counter is breakable, because you're just begging for a chop," she cautioned him.

"Weren't you apologizing?"

Maka blew a frustrated puff of air out her nose. "You're impossible, you know that?" She sighed. "But yeah, you're right, the stuff I said to you yesterday really _wasn't_ cool."

Soul looked at her speculatively for a moment before he said, in a tone that Maka would almost have described as _shy_ if she didn't know better, "Jackie thought you might be pissed off because Kim suddenly lost her mind and decided to hit on me. Was that why… uh, I mean, is that right?"

Maka could practically feel herself turning red. There wasn't really any way to respond to that without giving away her feelings for him. "I… um…"

"I figured it was something like that," Soul continued.

"Y-you did?" she squeaked.

He looked a tad confused by her mortified tone, but mercifully didn't comment. "Yeah, I mean… I'm not a meister, but I guess there's gotta be some kind of possessive technician-instinct thing towards your weapon, right? Jackie pointed out how you used to get all weird back when those NOT girls were stalking me."

She blinked. He thought it was because he was her _weapon_. "Yeah," she sighed out. "Yeah, it's a meister thing, I guess." Or not.

Soul ruffled her hair affectionately. "Dork. I thought we already decided that I'm your weapon, end of story."

"End of story… right…" Her throat ached and she bit her lip against words she shouldn't say. "So we're good now, right?"

He gave her a brief, casual one-armed hug. "'Course we're good. Now let's finish these dishes quick, huh? I don't want my hands to go all gross and pruney."

Maka nodded silently and they went back to work finishing up the chore. When she glanced at Soul out of the corner of her eye, she could see that he had a small smile on his face in place of his usual surly look. Clearly he was pleased that their tiff had been resolved and they were no loWger fighting, and she knew that she should be as well, because she _hated_ fighting with Soul. There were only a few feelings worse than being at odds with her best friend and partner. But no matter how hard she told herself to be happy, she couldn't seem to make herself feel it.

She had managed to get through her apology without exposing her feelings for him. He had handed her a perfect excuse to use. So why did she feel like crying?


	5. Dec. 30th

The next day was overcast and sleet or snow was predicted in the afternoon. Most of the group was reluctant to drive up the mountain with the promise of miserable weather looming over them. It didn't stop Harvar or Jackie, the two most devoted ski enthusiasts in the group, from hopping in his van and going up anyway, but the rest of them chose to stay down at safer elevations. Even Black*Star, much to everyone's surprise, decided to stay with Tsubaki rather than get in more time on his snowboard.

The group lazed around in the common room on the second floor of the A-frame, talking idly and enjoying each others' company. Ox and Maka played a game of Scrabble that almost ended in a fistfight, prevented only by Kilik's repeated cautions not to swear in front of Fire and Thunder and an eventual physical intervention by Tsubaki, who threatened to put them both in a corner if they couldn't behave.

As late morning faded into early afternoon, sandwiches were made and distributed and the Evans's enormous flat screen was flipped on so that Kilik, Soul, Black*Star, and Liz could watch the basketball game. The instant the score flashed on the bottom of the screen, however, they discovered that the Death City Devils were losing by an absolutely ridiculous margin. A round of loud groans went up and they quickly gave in to the demands of the others to turn off the television because, in Maka's words "basketball was _boring_."

Not long after giving up on basketball in disgust, it started to become apparent that they were getting restless. This manifested itself in the form of Patti chasing random targets around the room with a sprig of mistletoe she had gotten from god-only-knew-where, attempting to corner them under it in company with the most awkward match imaginable.

After a solid twenty minutes of this, during which time Soul had only narrowly escaped being forced to french Black*Star, Liz apparently decided she'd had enough of her sister's antics. Looking up from filing her nails, she said, "Patti, why don't you get out your craft stuff?"

Patti, distracted momentarily from stalking her latest prey, looked up at her sister and pouted. "But I can draw anywhere!" she protested. "We're on vacation, we should be doing something special!"

Tsubaki spoke up. "You know, she has a point. We can sit around talking anywhere. We should do something we can only do _here_ , and take advantage of it."

Soul snorted and mumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like "tell that to my parents."

"Why don't we go for a walk?" Patti suggested cheerily.

"You know, that's not a bad idea," Liz agreed. "Growing up in Brooklyn, Patti and I didn't really get to walk in the woods much."

"Yeah!" Kilik piped up. "Are there any good hiking trails around here, Soul?"

Black*Star stared at Kilik, who was next to him on the sofa. "Dude, weren't you saying like five minutes ago how you never want to leave this couch again because it's so comf-"

The rest of what he was saying was lost as Kilik slammed his hand over Black*Star's mouth. When the utility meister noticed he was being stared at, he attempted (badly) to turn it into a fraternal hug/wrestling move combo.

"Oh-kay then," Liz said, after giving him a skeptical look. Turning her azure gaze back to Soul, she repeated Kilik's question.

Soul shrugged. "Yeah, there's a couple. Most of 'em are the starts of high-country hiking trails, not something you wanna tackle in the winter at all, let alone with bad weather coming, but there's a few easy walking trails just upslope."

* * *

The trail head was very nearby the Evans's, only a half mile or so from the cabin and not very far beyond the boundary between their privately-owned land and the state-owned parkland. Since it was so close, they elected to walk rather than take one of the cars. The entire group ended up going, with the exception of the two who were off skiing. Even Ox was coaxed into coming despite his still sensitive ankle, but he insisted that he would be taking frequent steps if he got too sore.

"Aggravating even a minor injury can significantly impact one's physical health and agility down the line," he preached unnecessarily so, for every meister present knew far too well how past injuries could affect their performance on the battle field.

The trail was lovely despite the ominously grey sky, quiet and surrounded by thick Engelmann spruce and white pines. The snow on the trail was pristine and untouched, which was beautiful but caused them more than a bit of difficulty. Sheltered by the dense forest, it wasn't quite as heavy on the ground as the snow in more open areas, but it was still over two feet deep. Wading through it was a challenge, especially for Fire and Thunder, who were the smallest of the group, although no one had a particularly easy time.

After five or ten minutes of wading along in snow up to their knees at the least, Soul grumbled, "Fuck this, we should've brought some snow shoes."

Black*Star let out a cackle. "What? Snow shoes? Dorky shit like that's for pussies who can't keep up with a big guy like me!"

Soul glowered in his direction, but before he could say a word, a slender arm hooked through his elbow. Soul felt his heart flutter happily in his chest, expecting it to be MAka. When he glanced sideways and caught an eyeful of Pepto-Bismol colored hair and heard Kim say, "I think snow shoes would be a good idea, Soul!" he felt sinking disappointment.

He didn't reply, both because he had nothing to say and because he kind of hoped if he ignored her she'd go away.

No such luck.

"Maybe I could make some snow shoes," Kim announced. "If you really wanted some."

Soul had thought he'd made it clear that he wasn't interested after their conversation yesterday, but it appeared he hadn't gotten his message across. "Sure," he said with a sigh.

Kim smiled happily. "Alright, I just need some sticks! Do you guys think you could find me some branches to work with?" she asked, letting her grip on Soul's elbow loosen as she turned to face the rest of the group behind them.

Soul took the opportunity to pull free and put some distance between them.

"Does it mean I can stop floundering around in this crap?" Kilik asked.

Kim nodded.

"Then hell yes!"

"Couldn't have said it better myself!" Liz agreed enthusiastically.

* * *

The group scattered off the path, poking around beneath the trees for fallen branches. Only Kim and Maka remained behind. Kim set about tracing a series of interlocking circles and lines in the untouched snow ahead of them on the trail.

"What are you doing?" Maka asked abruptly.

"Well, this kind of magic is pretty far off my specialty, so I need to set up a matrix to support my spell work and-"

"No," Maka interrupted, "I mean what are you doing with _Soul?_ "

It was fascinating to watch Kim's entire body visibly stiffen, locking in place. She stood frozen for a moment before straightening up and turning to face Maka. "I don't know what you mean!" she said, voice strained and shrill, much too shrill to be believable.

Maka scoffed. "Oh come on, Kim," she shot back. "You and I both know you've been hanging around him like a bad smell since you got here, so what gives?"

It was a sign of how deeply the young witch was entrenched in the lifestyle of a Shibusen meister that she unconsciously shifted her feet into a defensive stance when she felt threatened. "What's it to you?" she asked.

"Soul's my partner," Maka said fiercely.

Kim snorted. "Yeah, and he's also hot, rich, and single. It's not like being his partner gives you property rights!"

It took every ounce of Maka's questionable self-control to keep herself from leaping across the space between them and smacking the predatory smirk from Kim's pretty lips. "And it's not like he even wants you!" she snapped.

Kim's expression wavered oddly, but she retorted, "Are you sure? Maybe you're just jealous, hm, Maka?"

It hit too close to home, and Maka's smart reply withered on her tongue. "I-I just want him to be happy," she choked out.

The air immediately went out of Kim's sails. A visible slump went into her shoulders. "Oh death, you love him," she mumbled. Stumbling from the middle of the trail, she sank down onto a snow-covered boulder and hid her face in her hands. "I knew it was safe to flirt with him because he's so obviously infatuated with you, so it wasn't like he'd actually go fo it, but I didn't think you actually felt the same way!" Her tone was absolutely miserable. "I'm so sorry, Maka."

Maka wasn't sure whether she should be confused by her statement or elated by the assertion that her weapon shared her feelings. Deciding to deal with her relationship with Soul later, she sat gingerly on the boulder next to the young witch. "Kim, if you don't actually want Soul, why have you been... well...?"

"Shamelessly hitting on him?" Kim supplied in a wry but wavering voice.

Maka nodded even though Kim couldn't see her with her face buried in her hands; she couldn't respond verbally because she couldn't think of anything to say without being unnecessarily rude.

"I just... I just wanted to not look like such a fool!" Kim wailed.

"What?" Why would you look like a fool?"

Kim sniffled loudly, and it occurred to Maka that she was crying. "E-everybody thinks that I broke up with Ox, but that's not what happened," she stuttered out. "H-he b-broke up with me."

Maka's jaw dropped and she instinctively put a comforting arm around the distraught girl's shoulders. "But Ox adores you," she said blankly, completely baffled.

At her statement, Kim let out a wail and began crying harder. "B-but not e-enough t-t-to put up with th-the way I-I've been treating him!" she sobbed. "He s-said he was tired o-of m-me putting him d-down and not wanting t-to be seen in p-public with him! H-he said he deserves b-better than that and I h-hate it so much because he's right!"

There were many things in this world Maka could have expected, even predicted, but Ox Ford breaking up with Kim Diehl was not one of them. He had been utterly, faithfully devoted to the girl for years before Kim had ever given him the time of day. He had braved her verbal abuse and her mercurial responses toward him throughout their courtship and had finally gotten her to agree to be his girlfriend. Kim had been a hard-won love for Ox, and for him to reject her now... he had to _really_ mean it. This wasn't like the many temporary interruptions their relationship had suffered when Kim changed her mind for a few days or a few weeks. This was serious.

"I'm so sorry, Kim," Maka said, hugging her friend tighter.

Kim leaned into the comfort she offered, burying her face in Maka's shoulder. "I miss him so much, but I'm so confused," she mumbled between small, hiccuping sobs. "I don't want to be with him, but I _do_."

"I don't understand."

Kim gulped in a few deep breaths, calming herself, although she kept her face hidden against Maka's parka. Once she was moderately calmer, she said, "Ox wasn't in the Plan."

"What plan?"

"See, when I came to Shibusen, I had a plan. I couldn't fit into witch society, but I thought maybe... I'd come to school, and I'd find a rich, handsome boy and make him fall in love with me. And I would... I would fit in with him. I wouldn't ever have to tell him I wasn't normal, we could just live out our days together and if I had to I'd age myself with magic so he wouldn't notice I wasn't getting older at the same speed. It would have been perfect, see?"

Maka didn't see, not really. How could you love someone and lie to them like that? The only secret she kept from Soul was, in fact, how much she loved him.

Kim sighed and sat back at last, wiping at her eyes embarrassedly. "I had the Plan and I pretty much stuck to it until Ox. He... he offered me a place to belong, you know? He offered me e-exactly what I was looking for, and he's not rich or very handsome, but he's cute enough and I thought maybe... maybe I could give it a shot. If nothing else, it might be good practice, at least..." She trailed off with a sniffle. "I just couldn't let go of the Plan and I guess I finally pushed him too far. And I guess I just thought, if I have to get dumped, at least I could not... look pathetic about it. "

Maka rubbed gentle circles on Kim's shoulder through her coat. "You were trying to prove to Ox that he hadn't hurt you."

"Yes, exactly."

"You know, it's okay to hurt. Trying to find the right person to love you is hard, and sometimes you get hurt in the process," Maka said, electing to ignore the hypocrisy in her words for the moment. "Maybe you should forget the plan. I mean, you may not have found some rich, handsome, knight in shining armor type to sweep you off your feet, but you still have Spartoi. You have all of us, Kim, all of your friends. We're your place to belong. And you have Jackie, too. She'd follow you anywhere, you know, just like Soul would for me."

"Maybe not _just_ like Soul would," Kim mumbled, but her expression brightened enormously. She threw her arms around the scythe meister in a fierce hug. "Thank you, Maka. I feel so much better now. And I really am sorry for flirting with your boy."

Maka spluttered in protest as Kim released her. "Soul's- he's not-! I- Soul's not my boy! Dating your weapon is always a bad idea!"

Kim grinned like a fox. "Sounds like maybe someone has a Plan of her own that needs some reevaluating."

Ignoring Maka's stunned expression, she bounced to her feet, wiping at her cheeks to erase the last evidence of her crying jag. She returned to tracing out her patterns in the snow, now with a small smile on her face in place of the

It was only a few moments later that the rest of the group began to trail out of the woods, carrying armfuls of sticks or small downed branches. At Kim's instruction, they laid their burdens in the center of her etchings, careful not to smudge the lines. Once the whole group had deposited a sizable amount of wood in the places she directed, Kim shooed them all back from the edges of her drawings.

Kim stripped off her gloves and extended her arms out over the pile of wood, palms down and fingers splayed wide. "Raccoon-coon pon pon pon coon raccoon," she chanted.

Dim silvered-green light flickered in the outlines Kim had traced in the snow. They all stared in curious fascination, for Kim rarely did magic in front of anyone but Jackie. The lights flared up abruptly. When they faded, where the sticks they had gathered had been was a tidy little pile of ten pairs of snow shoes. Upon a closer inspection, they were all sized according the height and weight of the group members. There were even two smaller pairs designed for Fire and Thunder.

Immediately, they set about strapping the homemade snowshoes onto their feet, only to discover, during the distribution process, that Tsubaki and Black*Star were no longer among them.

"Where'd they go?" Kilik asked, looking over the group in confusion, as if he expected to suddenly spot them hiding behind Maka.

Soul shrugged. "They probably went to make out or somethin'. Better not go looking unless you wanna see Black*Star's tongue down her throat. Trust me, I've walked in on that before... it's not something you wanna witness if you can help it."

The rest of them visibly shuddered, and Fire made gagging noises and aggressively mimed vomiting into the snow, which resulted in a smack upside the head from his sister.

* * *

Jackie took the curve of a berm sharply, nearly skewing sideways as she cut around the snowbank at dangerous speeds. A patch of ice crusted on top of the snow caught her off guard and she shot across the slope at an unplanned angle. She attempted to crouch down to lower her center of gravity and regain control, but too much of her weight had been shifted off-balance and she tumbled backwards, rolling five or six feet with her momentum as her ski bindings detached.

She flopped over onto her back, pushing her goggles up off her face to breathe better.

The hissing crunch of a skier coming to a sharp halt caught her attention, and she tilted her head to see Harvar sliding to a stop next to her. He pulled off his balaclava and looked at her, silently offering her a hand to help her up. She blushed, mortified at her fall on such an easy slope (relatively speaking), but took his hand and let him pull her to her feet.

"Guess it's been longer than I thought since I last did freestyle," she mumbled by way of explanation.

Harvar shrugged. "Happens when you've been out of the game for awhile," he said, expressionless.

Jackie was in the process of dusting snow off the back of her jacket and out of her hair when he suddenly asked, "Are you alright?"

"What?" She laughed. "Yeah, I used to have worse falls on the bunny slope!"

"No, I know. I saw you go down, there's no way you'd have actually hurt anything like that. I meant... are you _alright?_ "

Harvar had two emotions: boredom and sarcasm. You had to know him pretty well to be able to pick up on anything more nuanced than that. Jackie, for her part, did know Harvar pretty well, and she was able to read the subtle traces of concern in his expression.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, you know, watching Kim all over Eater these last few days... it can't have been fun for you."

Jackie felt herself coloring again. Did _everybody_ know about her unrequited crush? Was her disappointment that obvious?

"You're not obvious, if that's what you're wondering," Harvar said drolly. "It's just that once you've had a broken heart, you tend to get better at seeing it in other people."

She looked at him curiously. "Are you saying _you've_ had your heart broken?" It was hard to picture.

He rolled his shoulders apathetically. "I wouldn't go that far, but I have cared for somebody who didn't care for me. It sucks."

"You got that right."

"But you're tough, you'll be fine."

A pleased smile crept onto Jackie's face despite the unhappy topic of conversation. Yeah, she was tough. She would keep hoping that maybe someday Kim would look at her and see her, not just as a weapon, friend, and confidante, but as a potential lover. She wanted that, and she wasn't ready to give up hope that it might someday happen. But she wasn't going to let it get her down the longer it went without that happening. She wasn't going to let it break her, because Harvar was right. She was stronger than that.

Harvar glanced away, shading his eyes against the diffuse, bright winter light that was filtering down through the cloud cover. "I'm thinking after we finish this run we might want to head back down to the cabin."

Jackie nodded. "Yeah, there's too much chatter as it is, if it starts sleeting like it was supposed to it'll be an absolute nightmare."

She set about strapping her skis back on, Harvar holding helpfully onto her shoulder to keep her steady despite the steep pitch of the slope they were on. Once she was successfully re-equipped, she shot a grin at her ski buddy.

"Last one to the bottom's a kishin egg?" she shouted, and took off, not daring to look back because she knew the other weapon would be right behind her.

* * *

Kilik fidgeted nervously with his hands in the pockets of his cargo pants as he approached Liz. This thing that had caught fire between them the last few days had him on edge. He and Liz had always been a little flirtatious together, and in the last few months it had gotten more... intense, he supposed. But multiple occasions of making out with no explanation given was a whole other level, and he didn't know what to make of it. He was going to get some answers.

He plopped down on the couch next to her, clearing his throat to get her to look up from her cell phone.

"Huh? Oh, hi Kilik," she said distractedly.

"Hey, Liz," he said. "You got a minute?"

"Uh, I guess?"

She looked wary, and that wasn't a great sign. He had a feeling she was going to bolt. Which, admittedly, wouldn't be the biggest tragedy in the world. Kilik was a big believer in the "you win some, you lose some" approach to dating, and if Liz wanted to split on him and never speak of this week of random tonsil hockey again once they returned to Death City, he could live with that. But he wasn't so sure he wanted to just let it be. Liz Thompson was definitely one of a kind, and he wanted to see if this could go anywhere. Death knew they had the chemistry!

"Listen, I wanted to talk about what happened yesterday-"

"Hey Sissy?" Patti interrupted him, popping up from behind the couch... what even had she been doing back there, anyway?

Liz looked relieved by the interruption, which made Kilik all the more certain that she wasn't all that interested in talking. "What, Patti?"

"Where are Tsubaki and Black*Star, anyway? They never came back."

Liz glanced at her cell phone again, and stared for several moments at the clock face, as if to make sure she hadn't read it wrong. "Shit, you're right," she said. "We've been back for like three hours... even Harvar and Jackie are back!" She shot him a glance that was half apologetic, half incredibly grateful for the distraction. "Listen, we'll talk later, okay?"

"Uh, okay?"

"Hey, guys, has anybody seen Tsubaki and Black*Star?" Liz called, getting up out of her seat.

A brief conference with the rest of the group revealed that none of the other members of Spartoi present had seen the shadow weapon or her meister since they had wandered off during their walk earlier.

"I don't like this," Maka said worriedly. "It's getting dark out already, and the weather's getting bad."

"We should go search!" Patti exclaimed.

Harvar nodded. "We can split up to cover more ground.

"But we'd better go in pairs," Kilik said. "It's not safe to be out alone in these kinds of conditions." That much was true, although maybe he had a bit of an ulterior motive in being the one to say it. Maybe he'd be able to have his little chat with Liz after all.

"I'm going with Patti!" Liz cried, clinging to her baby sister's arm.

Or not.

* * *

In the end, they split into four groups. Kilik stayed behind at the cabin with his weapons, so that someone would still be there if Tsubaki and Black*Star showed up there, while the rest of them divided into teams to spread out in different directions. Liz and Patti went to search the avalanche chute that was just over the next ridge from the Evans family cabin; Kim, Jackie, and Harvar headed into the woods downslope, in the event that the two of them had headed towards town; Soul and Maka hiked back up the hill in the direction of the trail they'd been walking on earlier that afternoon.

They were mostly silent except for occasional shouts of their friends' names, but once they'd reached the trail head, Maka said aloud, "If we don't find them in the next five minutes, I'm gonna just use my soul perception to find them."

"Good plan. I don't wanna be out here any longer than I have to, 'cause it's cold as balls," Soul grumbled.

"Y'know, you could have stayed back in the cabin with Kilik," Maka pointed out.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and snorted. "What, and let you go wandering around the mountains all by yourself? I don't think so, Little Miss Desert Queen. You'd freeze solid and then we'd have to send out a search party for _you!_ "

She stuck her tongue out at him. "Says the boy bitching about how cold it is. Besides, we had even numbers without you. I wouldn't have been alone."

"Yeah... well... I just... um..."

"What?"

It was getting very dark, so Maka couldn't be sure, but she thought Soul might be blushing. "I maybe wanted to keep hanging out with you. It's just, we haven't really gotten a chance to spend much time together on this trip."

Maka's fingers tingled. She recognized this as one of those Moments they had, when one of them (usually Soul, who was far more of a sap than most gave him credit for) would say something a little too close to the heart and she was made sharply aware of how profoundly she loved this boy. Always in the past, if there wasn't some immediate crisis to be dealt with, Maka would find a way to brush it off, to move past it while keeping their relationship in the Strictly Platonic zone. Because that was what she had to do, right? She was going to spend the rest of her life smothering her feelings for the sake of their partnership.

This was the part where she made some smart remark about _we live together, we spend time together every day_. This was the part where she pretended there wasn't an undercurrent of something in Soul's words that made her hope that this really _wasn't_ as one-sided as she liked to tell herself.

And yet...

She didn't want to. If she really thought about it, thought about the way her heart had pulled painfully in her chest each and every time she dismissed it when he said something sweet, she never had. She'd always done so in the past because that was what she was supposed to do. That was, as Kim had put it, The Plan.

Maka was a planner by nature. She loved to be three steps ahead in her schoolwork so that she was always ready for anything. She scheduled cleaning days in the apartment and marked the most efficient routes through various exhibits when she was planning a trip to the museum. She loved having a plan.

Except... Kim had followed her plan and it hadn't brought her much of anything except a broken heart. In this case, Maka had a funny suspicion that she was headed for the same sort of disaster. Soul was a strangely patient boy, but even the most patient person had their limits. She felt suddenly afraid that, if he really did share her feelings, she might push him to give up on her if she didn't ditch the plan, and fast.

Fortunately, she'd always been good at improvisation.

"Soul..." she started slowly, thoughtfully.

"What?" He stopped walking and turned to face her, seeming to sense something in her tone.

"I have something I want to-"

Before she could finish, Black*Star himself came crashing out of the undergrowth with a loud yell, landing between them and hooking an elbow around each of their necks, nearly strangling them in his enthusiasm. "Hello, minions!" he yelled, half-deafening them. "How are you this magnificent evening?"

"Looking for you, ya shriveled nutsack!" Soul said, pushing Black*Star's arm off irritably. Maka followed suit, because if he didn't stop touching her right this very second he wasn't going to _have_ a nutsack! He'd interrupted her right when she had finally gotten up the nerve to confess!

Soul continued: "Nobody's seen you or Tsubaki for hours. Where is she, anyway?"

"Right here," Tsubaki said, emerging from the forest more serenely than her boyfriend. Her coat was a little askew, scarf hanging lazily over one shoulder, and there were twigs in her hair. Maka spotted what looked suspiciously like a large hickey on her neck, and suddenly had some very strong suspicions about what, exactly, Black*Star and Tsubaki had been doing for the last couple of hours.

"Outside?" she asked her friend in a mildly disgusted tone. "Really? Wasn't that uncomfortable in this weather?"

"Oh, no," Tsubaki said mildly. "We kept plenty warm."

Maka groaned.

Soul looked between them for a moment before comprehension dawned in his eyes and his expression morphed from confusion to pure disgust. "Aw man, in the woods? Seriously? We were actually worried about you guys, and all this time you were just... just...?"

"Fucking like rabbits?" Black*Star suggested. "Guilty as charged!"

"I hate you so much," Soul grumbled.

"Hey," Black*Star rejoined with a jaunty grin, "don't take your frustration out on me just 'cause Tiny Tits here won't put ou-"

The ninja suddenly found himself in a twitching heap on the ground, as Maka stood over him with a book in her hand and a positively murderous expression on her face.

She glanced over at Soul. "Come on, let's go back to the cabin. Tsubaki, can you manage your jerk-idiot boyfriend?"

"Yes, he always comes around after a minute or two," she replied.

Maka set off at a quick gait through the snow, stomping angrily. It took Soul a few strides to catch up with her at the pace she was setting. Once he was at her side, he nudged her gently with his elbow.

She glanced up questioningly.

"Jerk-idiot?" he asked, raising a sardonic eyebrow.

Maka poked him in the side, trying to glare at him but failing because she kept smiling instead.


	6. Dec. 31st

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops. So I posted this on ff.net and Tumblr but (as usual, because I am an enormous derp) I forgot to upload it on Ao3. Better late than never?

Breakfast the next morning started out sluggish and ended up a celebration.

It had all started with Black*Star and Tsubaki being unusually affectionate, holding hands under the table and exchanging little kisses, which was unusual because Black*Star was not a very cuddly person and although neither of them minded engaging in (sometimes excessive) PDA, they were usually pretty calm in public. On this particular morning, however, they couldn't seem to keep their hands off each other.

After the third time Tsubaki grabbed Black*Star's ass when they passed each other in the kitchen, Soul finally grumbled, "God, can you two stop for like three seconds? I'm eating here."

Tsubaki tried to look apologetic, but only ended up grinning widely instead. "I'm sorry, Soul. I guess we just can't help it." She glanced at Black*Star, and the two exchanged a knowing smile. "Should we tell them?"

"Tsubaki is gonna marry me!" Black*Star shouted.

The room had been full of cheerful morning chatter, but at this loud pronouncement, everyone fell dead silent.

"What?" Maka squeaked.

Tsubaki beamed, and rolled back the long sleeve of her sweater to reveal the full length of her fingers. A small gold ring on her fourth finger glinted in the sunlight. At the sight, Soul covered his ears, earning him a confused glance from Kilik.

Soul's precautions were well-founded, because immediately after the ring was revealed a chorus of high-pitched shrieks went up from the girls around the table as they threw themselves at Tsubaki, all attempting to hug her simultaneously. Even Maka was enthusiastically clinging around Tsubaki's neck, giggling and congratulating her. The other boys quickly moved to emulate Soul.

Once the initial fervor had died down, and Patti had been dissuaded from loudly pestering Black*Star about why he'd bought her a plain gold band and _didn't Tsubaki deserve a big diamond, didn't he love her enough, huh, huh?_ ad infinitum, Soul deemed it safe to remove his hands from his ears.

"Congratulations, man," he said, once he was positive Black*Star would actually be able to hear him. "When did this happen, anyway?"

Black*Star grinned like the cat that got the cream. "Yesterday! I'd been planning to ask Tsubaki for awhile now, but I kept putting it off."

"Why?" Harvar asked. "You nervous or something?"

"Hell no!" Black*Star protested, though his sheepish look seemed to indicate the opposite. "I knew she'd say yes, of course! Nobody would turn down the great me! While you guys were all wandering around playing Pick-Up-Sticks, I got Tsubaki alone..."

_The deep snow muffled even Black*Star's heavy footsteps, which was fortunate because although he truly had learned to move silently like a true ninja before and during battle, in his free time he was still as loud and careless as ever. He tugged Tsubaki along by the hand, leading her enthusiastically through the sparse undergrowth._

_"Black*Star, where are we going?" she asked, laughing in confusion._

_"It's a surprise!" Black*Star laughed wildly and tugged her along a little more quickly._

_After a ten minute jog through the woods, during which Tsubaki grew increasingly more confused and a little bit worried, because it was rarely a good thing when the words "Black*Star" and "surprise" were put together in the same sentence.  
_

_At last, they reached an open clearing in the woods, high up on a ridge overlooking one of the avalanche chutes on the peak. It was a beautiful view, and Tsubaki took a moment to admire the scenery before Black*Star tugged on her sleeve to get her attention._

_"What is it?" she asked him. "What is all this about?"_

_The blue-haired meister cleared his throat. "Uh, I wanted to do this the traditional way, because I know your family's really old-fashioned and I figured I should do this right, but I since I wasn't actually raised in Japan I don't know any of the traditions and I know you tried to teach me but I mostly forgot. So I tried to research it but the books in the library weren't helpful and you know I can't look stuff up on the internet because I get distracted, so I tried asking Kid but he just went on some weird tangent about flowers and I couldn't ask Maka because she'd figure it out because she's smart like that and then she'd tell you, so I didn't have any way to find out, so I figured I'd just-"  
_

_"Black*Star," she murmured wonderingly, interrupting him. "Are you nervous?" Black*Star had been known to talk incessantly about nothing (or, more accurately, about himself) when he took it into his head to do so, but this kind of run-on rambling wasn't his style. She began to get an inkling what this was about._

_He gave her a sheepish grin. "Well, yeah. I mean, even a big star like me is allowed to get nervous when he's asking **his** star to marry him!"_

_And from his pocket he produced a ring._

_When she was a little girl, Tsubaki hadn't really been the type to fantasize about the boy she would marry someday. She was a warrior first and a woman second, even from early childhood. But standing here watching Black*Star holding the unadorned gold band out to her, the most beautiful mix of hope and nervousness and confidence all blending together on his open features, she couldn't help but think that if she had been the kind of girl who dreamed about her perfect proposal... this would be it._

"And that's pretty much it," Tsubaki concluded. "I said yes, obviously, and then-"

"And then you spent like three hours doing it in the woods," Soul said drolly. "Yes, we know."

"How does he find the stamina?" Harvar asked, gazing at Black*Star empirically.

"All that cardio he does has other applications," Tsubaki replied sweetly.

Everyone groaned, and Liz cried out, "Oh my god, Tsubaki, there are children present!"

"I meant that rhetorically," Harvar muttered.

* * *

"Hey... Ox?"

The spear meister glanced up from the book he had been perusing to discover his ex-girlfriend standing before him, hands folded in front of her and a sheepish look in her eye as she shuffled her feet shyly. Despite the circumstances, a happy little spark flared up that she was talking to him, which he crushed ruthlessly.

"What?" he asked, aiming for disinterested, with mixed results.

Kim brushed a lock of pink back from her forehead. "I just wanted to apologize," she said. "For everything."

This was new. Kim was many things, many wonderful, terrible things, but apologetic or contrite had never been one of them. "Beg pardon?"

She squirmed a little, and he figured she deserved the discomfort, at least in part. "I thought a lot about us yesterday," she explained. "About how everything got so messed up between us. That's mostly my fault, and I'm sorry. I had an ideal I was holding onto and you always fell short, so I used that to push you away."

"I appreciate the flattery, but where are you going with this?" Ox asked, channeling his partner's deadpan dryness as best he could, though it was far from his style. He needed some of Harvar's cool at the moment. He had ended things between them because Kim was always saying things like this... usually much less nicely than this, granted, but the principle remained the same.

Kim glared at him. "Just hang on, I'm getting there, idiot! I just want to... explain, and try to clear the air so we can stop being so angry with each other."

That sounded good to him! "Go on."

"I had a plan for how my life was supposed to go, see, and you didn't fit into the plan," she explained. "You offered me what I wanted but not in the way I wanted it. I couldn't resist it. I couldn't resist _you_ , because you're so sweet and you've always been so good to me. But I was always holding onto that ideal I was searching for, and I think a part of me resented you because as long as I was with you, I wasn't going to be able to find it, so I... I picked at you and put you down. That was wrong of me, and I'm sorry."

In all the years they'd been together, Kim had never been the one to apologize. Whether it was because she was too proud or because she genuinely didn't think she'd done anything wrong, he'd never been sure. This sudden attempt to make amends was an real turnaround for her, and it filled Ox with optimism. He suddenly felt ready to forgive her for any transgression.

"I accept your apology," he said.

Her shoulders slumped a little in what he could only interpret as relief. "Good, I'm glad," she said.

"Does this mean that we're... you know... would you take me back?" he asked. That wasn't quite the way he had meant to ask, because he had been the one to end this relationship, not her, but years of worshiping on his knees before her had become habit. He kind of hated that, but it might just be worth it if Kim had finally seen the error of her ways! Besides, the newly engaged couple in the house had put him in a bit of a romantic mood.

But Kim shook her head. "I don't think that's a good idea," she said. "I really care about you Ox, and I... well, I guess I don't want to _not_ be with you, but there are some things I need to figure out for myself. I need to reevaluate my priorities, I guess you could call it, and I think that's gonna be complicated enough without-"

"-Without me gumming up the works," he finished glumly.

"Well, I wouldn't have put it quite like _that_ , but... yes, basically," she said, half-sour and half-amused. Her expression gentled, and she said, "I'm serious, though. I really do care for you, and the time we spent together meant something."

It felt, suddenly, as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He hadn't realized how much he needed to hear that until she said it. His years of effort to win her heart had not been useless or in vain. It hadn't been one long exercise in futility. With those words, Kim had set him free.

A light, shy smile crept across her lips. "So... friends?" She stuck out her hand toward him.

Without hesitation, Ox reached up and shook her hand firmly. "Friends," he agreed.

* * *

Perhaps the official end of the long, dramatic love affair between Ox Ford and Kim Diehl had left him looking a little more sour than he had believed, because it wasn't more than a few hours before Patti popped up at his side and demanded that he stop looking so glum. They were, after all, on vacation. She didn't take well to his insistence that he was fine and didn't need cheering up, because somehow by midafternoon, a snowball fight had been organized. The roads were too bad to risk driving upslope to the ski range to participate in Patti's new favorite sport, but the storm the night before had dumped another foot of wet snow on the ground and left them with perfect conditions for the mother of all snow wars.

Under Patti's imperious command, they were divided up into teams. She, Liz, Ox, Harvar, Black*Star, and Tsubaki all ended up on one team, with Kim, Patti, Kilik, the twins, Soul, and Maka on the other.

It was not, by anyone's evaluation, a very equal division of talent... but no one had ever claimed that Patti was good at playing fair. It became very apparent very quickly that Patti's team was going to cream Kilik's team and there wasn't much they could do about it. Kim did her best to enchant snowballs, both to multiply them with magic in order to produce them more quickly, and to improve their accuracy, but she could only do so much, especially because Soul had the aim of a blind homeless ostrich and Fire and Thunder were more interested in melting their snowballs than throwing them. Setting such a team up against the deadly aim of the Thompson sisters, Black*Star's sheer throwing power, and the mechanically perfect snow fort Ox constructed, there wasn't much to be done. Kilik and the girls did their best, and Maka's competitive streak and sheer stubbornness nearly turned the tides for them, but then Black*Star somehow got up into a tree _behind_ their base and pelted them with snowballs from above.

During that devastating assault, Fire got a piece of ice (or maybe it was loose tree bark, none of them could tell for sure) stuck in his eye, and a brief halt was called so that Kim could address the injury. In the interim, the losing team set about patching up and reinforcing their pitifully unhelpful fortress.

Soul flopped face-down against the pack of snow, his arms splaying over the top of the sloped wall. "I have snow in places I don't even want to think about," he complained.

"Well at least it's gonna melt," Maka teased, cheerful despite being well on the way to being soundly beaten.

He made an annoyed grumbly noise low in his throat that made warmth flare low in Maka's gut. To distract herself from how frustratingly attractive she found her partner when he was being sulky, she tugged off a soaked glove and reached out to tousle his hair. There were more than a few chunks of snow tangled in his hair, not that you could tell because both snow and hair were the same shade of white. Maka took a great deal of enjoyment in brushing her fingers through his strands, picking out little lumps of ice for him. Soul had at least three times as much hair as any one person needed; it was ridiculously thick and unexpectedly soft, and she had always liked playing with it as a result.

Soul let out a little sigh and she grinned- she'd discovered years ago that Soul liked being petted. Not that he would admit to it, but he melted into a little puddle of happy sleepy scythe-boy if you played with his hair enough. It was quite possibly the sweetest thing she'd ever seen. When he unconsciously nudged his head a little closer to her hand, the gesture brought a sentimental smile to her face and reaffirmed the conviction that had been growing in her heart since last night.

She was ready to tell him. For good or ill, she was ready to let everything that had been building up inside her for so long come pouring out. But she needed to time it just right. She needed to get him alone and make sure there would be no interruptions like what had happened last night... and also to ensure that if he rejected her, she wouldn't have to be embarrassed in front of all their friends.

Oh death, he probably _was_ going to reject her, too. Soul cared about her deeply, she knew that, but she also knew that he didn't think there was an attractive bone in her body. He'd made that much painfully obvious. She was going to get rejected and it was going to be humiliating and it would probably screw up their partnership forever and oh god why was she doing this again?

Right, because Kim's predicament had opened her eyes. As long as she had these feelings, their partnership was going to get screwed up either way. She could either sit around stewing in unrequited love and slowly poison their friendship with her resentment, or she could get it over with quickly and have a better chance of salvaging _something_ in the aftermath.

When she thought of it that way, the choice was clear.

"Hey Soul?"

He hummed in acknowledgement, opening one eye to peer at her.

Maka continued to card her fingers through his hair. "I have something I want to talk to you about. To tell you, actually. Do you think we could go somewhere and talk once we finish getting our butts kicked?"

"Who says we're gonna get our butts kicked?" Soul asked, mock-frowning in her direction. "Where's that fighting spirit, Maka?"

"Oh hush, you," she said, tugging lightly on one snow-white lock.

He rolled over onto his back, dislodging her hand from his scalp and folding his hands behind his head as he stared up into the sky. "Yeah, you're right, we're getting our asses handed to us, aren't we?"

"Pretty much."

"Can I vote that we never ever let Patti pick teams again?"

"Definitely," Maka grumbled. "I hate losing."

"Never would've guessed," Soul drawled.

"Shut up." She smacked him on the shoulder. "Anyway, you never answered my question."

Soul turned his head to look at her more fully. His expression was inscrutable. "What did you wanna talk about? Should I be worried?"

 _Only if the idea of your partner being way more attached than she should be worries you_ , she thought dryly. Before she could open her mouth to put him at ease, however, the telltale hum of a certain flying skateboard cut through the chilly air.

"Kid's back! Kid's back!" Patti shrieked from somewhere across the yard.

Maka sat up properly and rolled to her feet as Soul followed more slowly, scanning the skies for a glimpse of Death the Kid. Sure enough, a moment later he emerged from behind the house on Beelzebub... and to her surprise, there was another person clinging tenuously onto him. Someone who looked oddly familiar, though she couldn't place why.

"Hey, he's got somebody with him!" Patti said.

"Who is that?" Kilik asked.

Maka craned her neck to get a better look as Kid landed. As the two riders stepped off the flying skateboard, she saw that the newcomer had light blonde hair, not quite as fair as Soul's but pretty close, and eyes of a shocking shade of blue she had only seen in the Thompson sisters before. He looked to be in his early thirties and although he was neatly dressed in a long black overcoat and a royal blue scarf Maka was pretty sure was silk, there was something rakish about the grin he wore as he looked out over the group in the yard. As she got a clearer look at his aristocratic features, she realized quite suddenly why he seemed so familiar to her.

Behind her, she heard Soul whisper, "Shit."

The stranger raised a black-gloved hand in a friendly wave, a blunt-toothed version of a certain shit-eating grin Maka was all too familiar with plastered all over his mouth. "There must be something wrong with my eyes! There's no way that's Soul Evans playing in the snow!" he called. "There's no way he'd be caught doing something so _uncool_."

Soul groaned loudly. "Fuck you, Wes."

The smirk on Wes Evans' face only grew. "Good to see you too, little brother!"

* * *

The arrival of Kid and Wes effectively put an end to the snow war, which was probably a good thing because even though it was inevitable, Maka didn't relish the thought of losing, especially not to Black*Star. Instead, they all returned to the lodge. The members of Spartoi who had been involved in the snowball fight all split up to their respective rooms to change into dry clothing.

Jackie peeled off her soaked sweater, grimacing at the feel of heavy wet fabric sticking to her skin. She was attempting to squirm her way out of her pants, hopping around on one foot awkwardly as she shook the other leg aggressively to get it to stop clinging to her foot, when her door opened with a loud let creak. She let out a squeak of surprise and fell over.

She grabbed for her discarded sweater, trying to cover up her semi-nude body. When she saw that it was Kim, she relaxed. It wasn't the first time Kim had walked in on her changing, and the partners had gotten over their modesty soon after they began rooming together. Jackie wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing that Kim was comfortable with them being around each other in varying states of undress. She certainly wasn't going to complain about getting opportunities to see Kim strutting around in nothing but her underwear, but she'd never been able to work out what that said for her chances romantically.

"Hey," Jackie greeted as she climbed up from the floor. She finally discarded her ice-encrusted pants and went rooting through her suitcase in search of a dry pair.

"Hi."

"What's up?"

Kim glanced to the side in that awkward way that she had when she was embarrassed by something. "I just... wanted to apologize."

Jackie furrowed her brow, confused, as she pulled on a fresh pair of jeans. "What?"

"I've apologized to everybody else, but I realized that I needed to say sorry to you as well. I've been acting really stupid the last few days, and I kind of ditched you a lot in the process. That's not how a partner is supposed to act," Kim said, a light blush on her face. "That's not how a _friend_ is supposed to act."

"Kim, you were going through stuff," Jackie hurried to reassure her. "I understand."

Kim shook her head. "That doesn't make it okay. Maka pointed out that you're always there for me when I need you, but then I just ignore you like that..." She sighed. "It's the new year tomorrow, so I'm going to turn over a new leaf. That's what humans do on New Year's, right? Make resolutions to be better?"

Jackie laughed. "Yeah, that's it."

"Well, my New Year's resolution is to be a better friend to you, Jackie," Kim said. "You're always there for me, so I'm going to be there for you, too, now."

If you asked her later, Jackie would have fervently denied that she melted into a pile of gooey feelings right there on the maplewood floor. "Thank you, Kim," she said warmly. "That means a lot."

Kim smiled, the broadest and most genuine smile Jackie had seen from her in days. She grabbed her partner in a tight and unexpected hug, completely ignoring the fact that Jackie was still not wearing a shirt. "Thank you for being my partner," she murmured in Jackie's ear. The lantern went rigid at the feeling of her beloved meister's lips brushing against the skin of her ear, and it made it nearly impossible to concentrate on Kim's next words. "If it weren't for you working so hard to get me to partner with you, I wouldn't even be here, I wouldn't have all these amazing friends. You changed my life so much and I want you to know I appreciate that."

When she pulled back, Jackie's face was beet red from pleased embarrassment, both at Kim's proximity and her uncharacteristic confession. Her feelings were probably painted all over her face, but she wasn't thinking clearly enough to process that at the moment. "W-what happened?" she asked shakily. "You're never this sentimental!"

The pink-haired witch gave a secretive little smile. "Oh, I just had a talk with a friend who reminded me what's really important."

"What's really important..." Jackie echoed.

Kim nodded. "Yeah. What's really important. Happy New Year, Jackie."

And then she was gone.

Jackie reached up to touch her ear; her skin was still blazing where Kim's lips had brushed. "Happy New Year," she whispered to the empty room.

* * *

"Wow, Wes, this hot chocolate is even better than Soul's!" Liz exclaimed, blue eyes wide with awe as she peered into the cup.

If Maka hadn't been sitting right beside her partner, she wouldn't have heard him mutter, "You've gotta be kidding me." She glanced at him curiously, but his ruby eyes were impassive and he was watching the ongoing conversation with apparent neutrality.

"Why thank you, Elizabeth, but I can't take credit. The secret is in the... shall we say... enhancements?" He winked at Liz, then added, "Virgin, of course, for the little ones-" He tilted his head in the direction of Fire and Thunder. "-But for the rest of us, I thought adding a bit of kahlua would be a nice New Year's treat."

"Well, you thought right!" Liz exclaimed.

The rest of the cocoa was distributed promptly as the rest of the group filtered out into the sitting room. Wes was properly introduced to everyone and the group appeared ready to dive into further compliments to his superior skill with hot beverages when Soul spoke up suddenly:

"What are you doing here, Wes?"

"Beg pardon?" The musician looked startled.

"Did Mum and Dad send you to check up on me?" Soul asked churlishly.

"Soul!" Maka reprimanded, poking him in the side.

Wes's confused look settled into brotherly understanding. "Not a bit," he said. "I'm here because I haven't seen my little brother since he was eleven years old and I missed him."

Soul's belligerent expression drooped into something a little like guilt. "Oh. Yeah, I missed you, too."

Wes reached across Maka to ruffle Soul's hair, which the younger Evans boy protested violently. "Aw, come on, Wes, really? Don't do that!"

"It's not like you can tell the difference," Liz piped up. "Your hair's always a mess!"

"That's what he wants you to think, but he works really hard to make it look like that," Maka said, elbowing her partner playfully. "He spends more time in the bathroom getting ready than I do!"

Soul groaned and sank deeper into the couch cushions, turning a shade of red Maka found entirely endearing.

"In any case, I'm sorry I wasn't here earlier in the day," Wes said, bringing the conversation back on track. "I meant to arrive before three, so that I could spend the day with Soul and get to know his friends better, but my rental car got stuck in a snow bank."

Ox nodded. "Yes, the roads are pretty awful today, aren't they?"

"I was lucky this fellow was passing by and gave me a lift up here," he said, nodding at Kid. He laughed lightly. "Of all the things I could have predicted happening in my life, being offered a ride by Shinigami-sama was not one of them!"

Kid shook his head. "Please, there's no need for titles. You may call me Death the Kid, or simply Kid. Everyone else does."

"Are you sure?" Wes asked. "It seems a little disrespectful."

Kid waved a hand dismissively. "Not at all. In present company, I prefer it. To be honest, I still struggle with the reality of being Lord Death." His expression was a little somber. "It was a responsibility I had not expected to bear so soon."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Wes said, and it was plain that he meant it. "I admit, I don't know much about what it is exactly that you do, but it must be very difficult to take your father's place while you're still mourning him."

Kid nodded solemnly. "Death is only another part of life, but not always a pleasant one. I thank you for your sympathy." He stared intently at the coffee table for a moment, seeming to look through it, then shook himself and perked up. "But this is not the time for such talk. Tell us about yourself, Wes. We would like to get to know Soul's mysterious elder brother!"

Wes cheerfully complied.

* * *

Soul's brother was far too charming. Kilik had decided this within twenty minutes of knowing the guy, but after several hours of watching him turn the charm on Liz, he knew it for certain. He and Soul might look an awful lot alike, but Kilik definitely preferred the younger Evans brother. Soul never went out of his way to flatter Elizabeth Thompson or make her blush with empty compliments. Wes was charming and polite to everyone, easily ingratiating himself into the group, but despite being easily thirty years old, he was _definitely_ paying special attention to the blonde. When Liz's silver-chime laugh rang out through the room, Kilik had the sudden urge to pummel the young violinist who was chatting gaily away to her.

It occurred to him, suddenly, that he was jealous.

Kilik wasn't a jealous person by nature, but he did like Liz and he didn't enjoy seeing her flirting lightly with the older man. He watched in annoyed silence, responding distractedly to Black*Star's chatter. He decided it was time to deal with this whole thing head on.

When Liz got up to refill her hot chocolate, he followed her to the kitchen.

"What are we doing?" he asked bluntly.

Liz nearly dropped the ladle into the pot of cocoa in surprise, not having heard him come in. "Shit, you scared me!" she exclaimed, one hand over her presumably pounding heart.

"Sorry," he apologized.

"No worries, I'm easily startled," she said with a teasing grin.

As she set about pouring a few shots of kahlua into her cocoa, Kilik asked again, "I'm serious, Liz. What are we doing here?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Yeah you do. You, me, in a jacuzzi? That ring any bells?"

Her expression went from lightly confused to earnest. "Oh. That."

"Yeah. That."

"I'm not sure what you want me to say."

Kilik wondered if it was actually possible to tear out one's hair in frustration, because he was really tempted to try it right now. "Something's going on with us, and I wanna know where we stand," he said, with exaggerated patience.

"Oh." Liz brought the bottle of kahlua to her lips and proceeded to chug half the contents as Kilik stared in puzzled awe. Once she was finished, she slapped the bottle down on the counter as if it were a shot glass. Then she fixed him with a nervous, but resolute stare. "Okay then. Honestly? I don't know."

"You don't know?" That was disheartening, because Kilik definitely knew where he stood and what he wanted.

She shrugged. "It's just a little confusing. Because, see, I really like spending time with you. You're fun and funny and... I dunno, hanging out with you is nice. But, see, you're Boyfriend Material."

That statement made a grin- it was really more like a smirk- spread across his face. "Oh really?"

"Shut up." She gave his shoulder a light shove. "Look, I've never really been a relationship girl. I tried once or twice, but it just wasn't very interesting. Maybe I picked the wrong guys, I dunno, but I have my sister and I have my meister. I love them and they love me, unconditionally, and that's really all the emotional fulfillment I've ever needed. There have been some guys in the past, but they were really more like..."

"Like friends with benefits?" Kilik suggested, when she seemed to struggle for an appropriate euphemism.

Liz nodded, absently pushing aside the long curtain of her golden hair. "Basically, yeah. It's not that I object to the idea of a more... um... substantial relationship, I've just never needed it. And the thing is, I don't know if I want that with you yet. I like you, I know that much, but I like our friendship too much to just have casual sex with you, because that would make it all weird and I definitely don't want that, and I just... well, it's confusing. I'm sorry, I'm not making any sense."

Actually, she was making perfect sense, at least in his opinion. He still wasn't entirely sure where that left them, but he had a better idea of her mindset, and it helped clarify exactly what his plan of action was. "That's all I wanted to know," he said. "These last couple of days have been crazy, ya know? I just wanted to figure out what was going on with us."

Liz stared at him like he'd grown a second head. "And what I said helped _how_ , exactly?"

"Have dinner with me."

"What?"

He grinned, liking that he'd successfully thrown her for a loop. Liz was always beautiful, but she was really cute when she was confused. "When we get back to Death City, have dinner with me. It doesn't have to be some big relationship thing if you don't want that. We can just hang out and see what happens."

She pondered that for a moment, then flashed him a bright grin. "You're on, Kilik."

* * *

It was only minutes to midnight when Maka realized that Soul was no longer with the rest of the company. She wasn't sure when he'd disappeared, only that she hadn't seen him in some time.

"Has anybody seen Soul?" she asked.

She was met with blank stares and apologetic shrugs.

"I'm gonna go look for him," she said, getting to her feet. "I don't want him to miss the countdown."

She wandered into the second wing of the house, feet padding softly on the hallway carpet. She peered into his bedroom, thinking he might have retreated to solitude there, which was his usual recourse at home when he'd had enough socializing. But the bedroom was empty. She poked around a few of the other rooms with no luck, and checked all the bathrooms, which were equally unoccupied.

Finally, she pushed open the door to the long balcony that ran along the front of the house and found him at last. He wasn't wearing a coat, or shoes for that matter, just slouching against the wooden balcony railing, staring down the slope to where the city lights of Aspen shone in the darkness. It was a moonless night, but starlight glinted in his fair hair and he looked at that moment very distant and ethereal and sad. To Maka's eyes he appeared, for a moment, like a character from a fairytale.

"What are you doing out here?" she asked. "It's freezing, and the countdown's going to start in a few minutes."

Soul didn't look at her. "Just needed some air."

She approached the railing as well, leaning up next to him. She studied him thoughtfully. "Are you okay?" she asked. "You've been acting weird ever since Wes got here."

He shrugged.

"Come on, Soul," she said, laying a hand on his arm where it rested across the rail. "Talk to me."

He tilted his head to look at her. "You really want to know?"

"Of course I do."

He shook his head with a soft sigh, turning once more to stare down into the valley below. "I haven't seen my brother in nine years, almost ten. We talk on the phone sometimes, and he writes, but... I haven't actually seen _any_ of my family in a long time, and it's better that way."

"Why?" Maka knew some of Soul's issues with his family, both from what he'd told her and from things she had felt passing between their bonded souls. She was aware of, but did not really understand, his complicated feelings of love and resentment he held towards his brother. She drew her hand back, straightening up a little as she stared at him in confusion.

Soul didn't respond to her question directly. Instead he said, "I guess I thought things were finally different. When he showed up it was weird, but I thought, you know, with you guys all here with me it wouldn't be like it was before. But nothing's changed. I'm still just... Wes Evans' kid brother."

"What do you mean?"

Soul scoffed. "Come on, Maka. You've met him now, you can see for yourself. He's older and smarter and he's good-looking and charming and he always knows just what to say, not like me, I spend half my life with my foot so far in my mouth it's coming out the other end to kick my ass. Wes is fun. Wes is talented. Wes makes better cocoa." He rolled his eyes, but then his moment of sarcastic irritation fell away, and he dropped his head, staring at the wooden railing between his arms. "I just thought maybe for once I wouldn't be second best, you know?"

"Soul..." she whispered, laying a hand on his shoulder, which he immediately shrugged off.

"Hell, even you're paying all kinds of attention to him!" he said scathingly.

"Soul!"

He sighed, deflating again. "I'm sorry. I'm being really uncool."

It was Maka's turn to roll her eyes. Soul really could be an idiot sometimes. "No, Soul. Your feelings aren't uncool. I know you have a complicated relationship with your brother. But I don't think you're seeing the situation clearly."

"Oh yeah?" he asked dubiously.

She nodded, although he wasn't looking at her. "Yes. Soul, there's only one reason Wes is interesting to me. I mean, yes, he is all those things you said, but there are a lot of charming, talented people in the world. What makes Wes special to me is the fact that he's your brother."

"Huh?" Soul asked, looking over at her with his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

Maka grinned at his adorably bewildered expression. "I can't speak for everybody else in there, but they're your friends too, and I bet they'd agree with me. If I passed Wes on the street or made small talk with him in an art gallery, I'd probably never think about him again, but since he's your family, I have a reason to want to get to know him. I care about _Wes_ because I care about _you_."

Soul looked a little sheepish. "Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh,'" Maka echoed. She was still smiling but she felt a little nervous, because she had just realized that they were all alone with no one around to interrupt... and there was something she still meant to tell him.

"I guess I'm being kind of stupid, huh?"

"A little bit, yes," Maka agreed. "I thought you were over all of these insecurities?"

He shifted a little uncomfortably. "I thought so too, but then Wes showed up like that and it was like I was ten years old all over again."

"You should stop being so hard on yourself," she said, hands clenching on the railing to keep them from trembling as she gazed out over the scenery to avoid Soul's gaze. "There's not a thing wrong with you, Soul."

"You and I both know that's not true," he said, sounding tired. "Hell, you've never minded pointing out my flaws before."

"Yes, well, I seem to have fallen in love with you flaws and all, so they must not be that bad," she said. Her stomach dropped sharply and she felt a bit lightheaded, unable to quite believe she'd really gone and said it, let alone so casually. At the moment she'd opened her mouth it had felt like the right thing to say, the right way to say it, but after the fact it made her dizzy as her own words echoed in her ears.

Soul was silent for a worryingly long time, and Maka couldn't bring herself to look at him to see the inevitable shock and probable disgust that she was positive she would find on his face.

Eventually, he stuttered out, "Y-you love me?"

"That's what I just said, isn't it?" she replied, and immediately clamped down on her lip to keep it from trembling. Her hands worked nervously against the railing.

One of Soul's large hands, fingers cold from the bitter temperatures outside, cupped her cheek and turned her head to face him. "You love me," he repeated, and there was a look of joyous wonderment on his face as he said it that made Maka's heart turn over.

Suddenly, she found herself pulled close to his chest in a tight embrace, his arms wrapped securely around her. "I love you, too," he said quietly. She felt his lips moving against her hair, and she shivered.

Then his words processed and she felt a surge of incredible joy. She couldn't understand how this could be, because there had been so many things Soul had said over the years to make sure she knew he was in no way interested in her, but she decided she didn't really care. And then again, Maka had always been an actions-speak-louder kind of girl, and while Soul had _said_ he felt no attraction for her, now that she thought about it, some of his actions seemed to say differently. If Soul said he loved her, she believed him.

Maka looked up at him, needing to see his face again, and found that she had an awfully long way to look up in order to see his awe-struck expression. "When did you get so tall?" she asked, unable to think of anything else to say. "It seems like yesterday I was taller than you."

"Shut up," he mumbled. "I'm still trying to forget that."

She untangled one arm from around his torso to swat him lightly on the shoulder. "Shush, we were preteens, it's normal for girls to be taller than boys at that age."

"Yeah, well, you weren't the one getting all kinds of crap about being shorter than my meister from Black*Star."

"Black*Star doesn't have room to talk," Maka said slyly. "He's _never_ been taller than Tsubaki and unless he has a miraculous late growth spurt, he's never going to be."

Soul snorted, but his amusement faded quickly, replaced by that same wonderment that had been there before. It was an expression of such pure happiness and adoration, it took Maka's breath away.

He removed one hand from around her waist to cup her cheek lightly in his palm. His thumb traced little circles against her skin. "Maka?"

"Yeah?" she whispered.

"Can I kiss you?"

The fact that he had asked made her melt just a little bit. If she hadn't loved him before, that shy, hopeful question would have done it. She nodded, and Soul leaned down to press his mouth lightly to hers.

Soul's lips were chapped from the cold and his hands were shaking, but she couldn't help the happy little noise that rose up in her throat when he kissed her, and she responded enthusiastically, standing up on her toes to wrap her arms around his neck. Soul squeezed her hip lightly, and she could feel him smiling against her mouth, which made her smile in turn. The hand that had been resting on her cheek slid back to bury itself in her hair, tilting her head back to change the angle of the kiss. Their noses bumped together as she moved, and Maka broke the kiss for a moment to let out a surprised giggle before diving back in with more enthusiasm.

Inside the house, the clock ticked over to midnight, and a new year began.


	7. Epilogue (Jan. 1st)

Soul would have happily gone on kissing Maka indefinitely, because although they were both a little clumsy and new at this, the feel of her breath feathering across his cheek and the warmth of her body tucked close against his own and the soft sounds she made as he ran his tongue experimentally along the seam of her lips more than made up for it. However, a loud bang from down the valley interrupted them and Maka pulled away from him to look curiously downslope. Another short series of explosions, preceded by bright flares of multicolored light, cleared up the mystery.

"Fireworks!" Maka exclaimed. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes shone in the reflected light of the pyrotechnics over Aspen, and Soul decided that staring at her indefinitely was also a viable option. She looked back at him, pouting. "It must be midnight- we missed the countdown."

He considered it a rather remarkable feat that he didn't lean down to nibble on that adorable pout of hers. "Screw the countdown, I think our celebration was better," he said, his fingers playing absentmindedly with the ends of her loose hair.

She beamed up at him, eyes soft and expressive and _fuck_ this was better than winning the lottery and the Superbowl _combined_. Soul was pretty sure that the only way to describe his current emotional state was "giddy" and goddamn he did not care if he looked ridiculous with the big stupid grin he was wearing. He got the girl. Or more like the girl got him, but frankly Soul didn't care much about the details because _Maka loved him_.

"You might be right about that," she said, "But I suggest we move the celebration somewhere else, because you've been out here with no shoes and no coat for I don't know how long, and I'm pretty sure it's below zero right now."

She had a good point, it really was pretty cold, and a decade in Death Valley had pretty much destroyed his native New Englander sensibilities about weather. Still, everybody else was inside and if they went in and rejoined them that meant no more kisses, which was not a favorable turn of events at all, in Soul's opinion. He had by no means gotten his fill of this new pastime. Unless maybe he could convince her that moving inside didn't necessarily have to mean going back to their friends.

No such luck. When they got inside he tried to subtly guide her in the opposite direction of the room where everyone was gathered, but his meister, apparently, knew him too well. She gave him a wry look, one eyebrow raised.

"Soul, everyone else is _that way_ ," she said, nodding her head in the direction of the common room.

"Can I help it if I want you to myself for a little while?" he said.

Maka blinked. "Are you... are you actually pouting?"

"No."

"You _are_."

She grinned and tugged lightly on his hand, pulling him closer. Soul had no problem with that, so he let her reel him in.

"You're sweet," she told him, kissing him lightly on the cheek (Soul was absolutely _not_ blushing, nono **NO** ). "We've got plenty of time later for just you and me, but for now we're here with our friends so let's take advantage of that while we're here, okay?"

"I hate when you're right," Soul muttered, but he was smiling. He wasn't totally sure he was ever going to _stop_ smiling.

And so he let her lead him by the hand back to the living room. When he thought about it, it was actually probably a good thing he wasn't going to be alone right now. He was too high on the words she'd said, and he'd probably end up spilling his guts, telling her how amazing she was, how much she'd changed his life for the better, how with her he felt like maybe- just maybe- he was actually worth something, how she brightened up his day just by being Maka, all that sappy stuff. Not, of course, that there was anything wrong with letting the girl you loved know she was appreciated, especially not between two people who were as close as they were, but he wasn't good at the Big Emotional Speeches thing so he'd probably fuck it up. Besides, in his current emotional state, Soul was pretty sure he'd end up doing something really embarrassing, like start crying or something. And that, he reflected, would not be cool at all. Yeah, definitely better if they were around other people for a bit until the novelty of this wore off.

Before they could reach the end of the hall, however, Soul pulled her to a halt.

"What is-?"

Soul's hands had cupped her cheeks before she could finish her question, and he brought her lips to his in one last kiss before they were back in public. It was just a short little thing, affectionate and tender, and when it was over Soul pressed his forehead to hers lightly, reveling in the knowledge that he could do this now. The glow of her cheeks and the silly grin on her lips was worth everything.

"You really love me?" he asked softly.

"I really love you," she said, equally softly.

"That's... really good," Soul said, struggling for words, because he'd never been great at expressing his feelings but this was _so_ important and he needed to try. "I never, um, thought you'd feel the same way."

"I know the feeling," Maka said

He brushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. "Love you," he said quietly, and _god_ it felt good to say. She didn't say a word in reply, but she didn't need to. Soul could see her heart in her eyes.

Oh god, he was cheesy when he was in love, wasn't he? He couldn't really bring himself to care, though. Not tonight, anyway.

Finally they made it back into the living room. Soul was ridiculously pleased to find that when he sat down next to Wes, Maka sat on his other side and snuggled right up next to him.

The room was dark, lit only by the fire in the fireplace and the TV, which was muted, displaying live coverage of the New Year's celebrations... somewhere. Argentina, maybe. Soul didn't really care. He looked around the room at all the people gathered there. Black*Star was dozing on the other chaise lounge, Tsubaki with curled up next to him, admiring the glint of her ring in the firelight and failing spectacularly at being subtle about it. Liz was seated on the other couch, with Kid and Kilik on either side of her; the two meisters were engaged in what Soul considered a rather pointless conversation about skateboard brands. Kim and Jackie were leaning up against the couch. Soul took note that Kim had drifted off on Jackie's shoulder, and the usually serious weapon couldn't have looked more pleased. On the floor, Patti, Ox, Harvar, and the twins were playing another of Patti's board games. Ox and Patti appeared to be having a rather heated debate about the rules.

Lastly, Soul glanced at Wes, whom he hadn't seen in so many years. Wes seemed to sense his gaze and looked over to catch his eye. He saw Wes take note of Maka cuddled up by his side, and his brother raised an eyebrow questioningly. Soul just grinned, and it seemed that despite all the time that had passed Wes still hadn't lost his uncanny talent for reading a situation, because he grinned right back and there was something congratulatory in his smile. They had a lot of catching up to do and a lot of air to clear, but at that moment Soul didn't have a single doubt that they would be alright.

Here were the people Soul cared about, all gathered together. His friends, his family... and Maka. He glanced down at the top of her head, his broad grin softening into something gentler. Soul was a cynic by nature, but at this particular moment he felt incredibly positive and optimistic. Maybe, he thought, this was what the holidays were all about.

"Hey! Soul and Maka are holding hands!"

At Black*Star's raucous shout, all thoughts of peace on earth and goodwill toward men and all that crap vanished from Soul's head.

"Soul likes Maka! Maka likes Soul!" the ninja cackled, as if they were all back in grade school.

Okay, never mind. He would be warm and fuzzy and optimistic _after_ he kicked Black*Star's ass.


End file.
